Sydney Metro City & Southwest


 * This page refers to the second stage of Sydney Metro. For other uses of Metro see: Metro (disambiguation).

The Sydney Metro City & Southwest is an upcoming metro line that will run from Chatswood to Bankstown via Sydney CBD. Upon its completion in 2024, it will become the second operational rapid transit line in Australia. Construction began in 2016 as work on the North West Line was nearing completion.

Much like the North West Line, it will be controlled by Northwest Rapid Transit, owned by MTR Corporation (Hong Kong). NRT will be responsible for service operation and station design and layout.

Construction
The line is a continuation of the North West Line between Chatswood and Tallawong. It will extend south from the turnbacks at Chatswood, sharing the Sydney Trains corridor for a short distance before diving underground into twin tunnels toward Sydney Harbour. This section will be dug by two tunnel boring machines (TBMs), named "Wendy" (named after Bear Cottage volunteer Wendy Schreiber) and "Mabel" (named after Mabel Newill, an Australian war nurse during World War I). The TBMs will be launched at Chatswood and retrieved from Blues Point on the foreshore. There will be two stations in this section: Crows Nest and Victoria Cross (near the existing North Sydney station).

The line will then cross Sydney Harbour, staying underground. A special TBM, named Kathleen, will dig this section, due to the different geological conditions under the harbour. It will be launched from Barangaroo, retrieved from Blues Points and then transported back to Barangaroo to dig the second tunnel in the same way.

The line then continues underground across the Sydney CBD and through the inner city to the Marrickville Dive Site (near Sydenham station). There will be stations at Barangaroo, Martin Place, Pitt Street, Central and Waterloo. This section will be dug by two TBMs, named "Nancy" (named after Nancy Bird Walton, Australia's first female pioneer aviator) and "Mum Shirl" (named after Colleen Shirley "Mum Shirl" Perry, known for her contributions to legal, medical, housing and cultural services towards the Aboriginal Australian community). These TBMs will be launched from the Marrickville Dive Site and retrieved at Barangaroo.

The line emerges above ground at the Marrickville Dive Site. A train maintenance facility will be built here. The line will then continue onto Sydney Trains' T3 Bankstown Line to Bankstown. Similar to how it was done for the Northwest line, all stations on this line will be converted to metro stations. All platforms along the line will be straightened and fitted with platform screen doors. Most concourses will also be rebuilt to provide wheelchair access. The track and overhead wires will mostly remain intact, except for around stations (to allow platform straightening) and where power supply upgrades are needed to allow for the higher current draw of the metro trains.

Progress
Planning documentation was submitted for the Chatswood-Sydenham section in November 2015 and it was approved in January 2017. The Sydenham-Bankstown section was approved in December 2018.

The two TBMs for the northern section started tunnelling in early 2019 and finished in late 2019. The two TBMs for the southern section started tunnelling in late 2018 and finished in late 2019. The harbour TBM finished tunnelling in March 2020.

Lineside work between Sydenham & Bankstown was started in 2019. This involved installation of conduits for metro signalling equipment, substations and a new underground cable connecting to Canterbury subtransmission substation (which supplies power to most of the region).

Effects on other lines during construction
From 2019 to 2023, there will be line closures to allow for preliminary works over holiday periods when less people are travelling. The shutdowns are as follows: There will be another longer closure in 2023-2024, which will occur when the Chatswood-Sydenham section is close to completion or completed. The majority of the work on the Bankstown line will be done during this closure, including installation of gap fillers, platform screen doors and concourse upgrades. It will reopen as a metro line at the end of this closure.

Effects on other lines after opening
Erskineville and St Peters, two stations currently serviced by the Bankstown Line that are not receiving the Metro, will continue to be operated by Sydney Trains. The plan for these stations is unconfirmed, however it is likely that some T4 and/or T8 trains will be altered to stop at Erskineville & St Peters.

After the Metro commences service, it is expected that 9 stations west of Bankstown (Carramar, Villawood, Leightonfield, Chester Hill, Sefton, Birrong, Yagoona, Regents Park, Berala) will continue to be served by Sydney Trains services. TfNSW is currently seeking community feedback about how to serve each branch of the Bankstown line. Their preferred plan is to have trains run Liverpool - Inner West Line - City and Bankstown - Lidcombe. The previous plan was to replace these stations with a bus service.

As the metro has its own path into the City, it will free up slots for extra services on other lines. For example, an extra 10tph (trains per hour) of capacity will be freed up in the City Circle during the morning peak, meaning extra services can be added on the T2/T8 lines. It will also free up slots on the Illawara Local tracks, allowing for more T8 services via Sydenham. This will be done in conjunction with the More Trains, More Services program to increase capacity on other parts of the T8 line.

Operation
Much like the Sydney Metro Northwest line, the Metro City & Southwest line will be serviced by 6-carriage, single-deck, driverless Alstom Metropolis sets. The City & Southwest line will be operated by Northwest Rapid Transit, who already run the existing Northwest section.

The line will be electrified at 1500V DC and the track gauge will be standard (1435mm). It will be fitted with communications based train control (CBTC), the same system as on the Northwest line, that allows for driverless operation.

Trivia

 * This will be the second Sydney Metro line to involve an existing Sydney Trains line getting converted to rapid-transit format.
 * Sydney University was originally considered to host the Metro station between Central and Sydenham, and even released their own video promoting what the station would look like, until the slot was ultimately handed to Waterloo in December 2015.
 * This line was originally also planned to extend to Hurstville, and would have involved metro rapid-transit conversion of the Illawarra Line from Sydenham to Hurstville (Sydenham, Tempe, Arncliffe, Banksia, Rockdale, Kogarah, Carlton, Allawah and Hurstville), but this plan was ultimately scrapped due to platform conditions unfeasable for straightening and issues with freight trains required to use the Illawarra Line as an alternate southbound route if the Main South line is closed for trackwork.