Action for Public Transport (N.S.W.) Inc.

The project now has its own website http://northwestrail.com.au/, which is run by Bang the Table.

The project also has a shopfront at 299 Old Northern Rd, Castle Hill, open six days per week.

There are to be information sessions at venues along the route in July, August and September. Details are on the website.

The locations of some stations have not yet been fixed.

There are to be park-and-ride facilities at some stations, totalling perhaps 3000 cars.

It has not yet been decided whether to design the line for 100km/h operation.

It is not clear where trains from the line will run. Without further cutting upper North Shore services, it is not possible at present to run four city-bound trains per hour from Hornsby via Epping and Macquarie as well as perhaps four city-bound trains per hour from the north-west via Epping and Macquarie. This is because of capacity constraints between Chatswood and the city. Nor will it be possible to send trains from the north-west to the city via Strathfield because of the way the new line is to connect to existing tracks at Epping. Adding capacity would probably involve a new tunneled line between perhaps Redfern and St Leonards at significant cost; there as yet is no plan for this line even though the impending need for it was made very clear to the NSW government as early as 2001 (see http://www.aptnsw.org.au/cgi-bin/item.cgi?20020519Sun045109.txt)

For a discussion of the 2009 cuts to North Shore services, see http://www.aptnsw.org.au/cgi-bin/item.cgi?20081217Wed125408.txt. For a general discussion of the October 2009 timetable, see http://www.aptnsw.org.au/cityrail2009oct.html.

Action for Public Transport received a private briefing about the north-west railway on 22 July.