NSW Metro Line Opens for Business

Six underground stations have opened between Chatswood and Sydenham NSW Metro Line Opens for Business part of the $21-billion train network project comprising four metro lines, 46 stations and 113km of new rail in Sydney.

The new line includes accessible stations at Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Barangaroo, Martin Place, Gadigal and Waterloo.

A total of 445 new driverless metro services will run through the heart of the city each weekday on the new link, arriving every four minutes during peak periods. 

The ‘transformative’ new section of railway is the next stage of the M1 Northwest and Bankstown Line, which now extends 51.5km through Sydney and unlocks the Barangaroo harbourside area. 

NSW Premier Chris Minns said the expanded metro network had the capacity to move more people across Sydney Harbour in the busiest peak hour than the Sydney Harbour Bridge and Sydney Harbour Tunnel combined. 

“Obviously, this will see hundreds of thousands of people get to work in a different way. It needs to fully integrate with the rest of the public transport system,” Minns said.

“This is a massive piece of transport infrastructure … it will genuinely transform the way people get to and from work.”

▲ The platform of Barangaroo Station prior to its offical opening.

Minister for Transport Jo Haylen said 50,000 workers had been involved in the construction of the railway corridor. 

New buildings above Crows Nest, Victoria Cross, Gadigal and Waterloo stations remain under construction and will progressively open as they are finished.

The remaining 13km of the M1 Line will open after the conversion of 10 stations on the T3 Bankstown Line. The T3 line will close for the works before the end of 2024.

COX Architecture was commissioned by Lendlease as lead architects on the Victoria Cross station, as part of a broader design consortium with Bates Smart and Aspect Studios. 

COX director David Holm said the station comprised an island platform within a single cavern space that anchored a 42-level commercial tower above, as well as public plazas and retail space. 

“Victoria Cross is a natural extension of North Sydney’s public domain, connecting its fragmented streets and lanes with a new east-west through-site link in the form of a laneway—open to the sky—and including the completion of the much-needed north-south civic boulevard,” Holm said. 

The new Barangaroo station presented some extreme technical challenges building next to a heritage sandstone wall and the harbour. 

Arcadis and Mott MacDonald developed the plans under the joint-venture moniker of Metron along with principal sub-consultants Robert Bird Group, Foster + Partners, Architectus, WT Partnership and Group DLA.

CBRE head of research Sameer Chopra had used the new Metro line and said it would be a “transformational” piece of infrastructure for the city. 

He also reiterated his views that it would help to reinforce the return to work thematic in the Barangaroo, City core and south City office precincts, and help drive up residential values and demand in Sydney’s north-west, Lower North Shore and south-west suburbs.