Almost 1.5 million passengers who use the Sydney Metro each week will see a temporary uplift in services, starting this week.
There are three new metro trains ready for Southwest opening which will not be required for testing until June 7. These will be temporarily added to the Metro fleet until June 7, as the new Southwest Metro line goes into a construction blitz ahead of opening this year.
This temporary uplift will improve capacity along the Tallawong to Sydenham line by adding 166 new services to the current Sydney Metro network, benefiting around 1.5 million people weekly.
Sydney Metro services have been running every four minutes, but from today peak hour weekday services will start ramping up to a three-and-a-half minute service until June 7.
On weekends, Sydney Metro services will increase frequency from every ten minutes to every seven minutes.
The Metro uplift will be delivered until June 7 when the extra trains need to be redeployed back to the Southwest Metro for final stages of testing before opening later in the year.
Extending the uplift beyond that point would delay the opening of Southwest Metro.
From last Saturday through to Friday 1 May 2026, on-track testing will temporarily pause on the Bankstown extension to provide a safe work window for hundreds of workers to complete a significant program of work.
During this time, teams will install 1,140 fixed gap fillers across 10 upgraded station platforms. The gap fillers add to 170 previously installed mechanical gap fillers, which are a key safety feature of the new line and will allow gap free access for passengers between trains and the curved platforms.
Other work will include:
- Overhead wiring and signal works throughout the corridor
- Bridge works at Belmore, Wiley Park and Punchbowl
- Track preparation: installing monitoring systems and refreshing ballast, tamping and regulating.
- Boundary fencing and retaining / embankment walls works at Marrickville, Belmore, Dulwich Hill, Campsie
- Station preparations: Deep cleaning, retiling and painting, bird proofing, and concourse works
The intensive program of work is critical to be able to progress to the next stage of the Southwest project - trial running. When train testing resumes, a series of weekend closures will follow, including full line closures on 9-10 May and 16-17 May. Passengers are encouraged to plan ahead and check travel apps for up-to-date service information.
Minister for Transport John Graham said:
"World class public transport is permanent cost-of-living relief, that's why we're providing more of it.
"Rather than have trains sitting empty while we undertake this construction sprint to get the Southwest Metro ready we are adding them to the line now, to step up services where we know there is high demand.
"We're entering a very busy stage of the Southwest Metro delivery. With this five week construction sprint, we're getting closer and closer to delivering the world class service hundreds of thousands of other commuters are already enjoying."
