Transportation Deployment Casebook/2025/Sydney's Heavy Suburban Railways

Qualitative Analysis

Technology

The terminology of rail systems varies globally however heavy rail generally refers to a state’s mainline passenger and freight railways which are part of the broader rail network. A suburban railway can have many different forms and features but it is fundamentally a rail service within a metropolitan region, usually connecting to a city centre. An essential feature of suburban rail is the ability to operate high capacity, long distance routes on a reliable schedule. Large cities and their commuters are therefore the primary market and passengers’ willingness to use suburban rail over other modes is dependent on the characteristics of the systems available to them. Such characteristics include network accessibility, running times and comfort.

Passenger railway services almost universally have fares which can be heavily regulated to encourage certain behaviours. Suburban railways often feature, and in some places are defined by, electric traction which brings benefits such greater power efficiency, reduced air and acoustic emissions and faster acceleration. Such characteristics compounded by rail’s ability to efficiently move masses of people make suburban railways an attractive investment for large cities, despite the huge costs and planning involved.

Context

Water transport was a primary long-distance mode for people and cargo, primarily around Sydney Harbour and along the Parramatta River throught the majority of the 19th century. More arable land west of the city in the Cumberland Plain favoured agriculture and this was where some of the earliest settlements in the state were located, such as Parramatta and Windsor. Being an ancient form of travel, water transport was reliable but slow, and most importantly could not reach truly inland areas.

Roads were mostly undeveloped as was land transport technology at the time. Water transport modes saw greater development due to early Sydney’s physical geography being characterised by waterways and uneven sandstone terrain. Animal-based transport was the only way of moving any large distance overland, and some stagecoaches linked to agricultural settlements such as Sydney to Parramatta. Unlike natural waterways, roads had to be constructed which was expensive and would be largely delayed until the advent of the private motor vehicle.

Walking was the primary means of transport for many people and led to dense development around the CBD and inner city, where walking remains an important form of transport today.

Invention

The first passenger railway in NSW was built by the Sydney Railway Company which was incorporated in 1849 with the aim of building a line to Parramatta. Australian colonies had the advantage of being part of the British Empire, the birthplace of rail transport, and so much of the expertise, such as engineering practices and the engineers themselves, could be imported. This led to the adoption of standard gauge, British-like signalling and the belief that railways would be built and operated by the private sector. The company faced financial hardship and became increasingly reliant on the government until it was acquired in 1955, the line opening that year.

This railway was steam-powered by British locomotives and provided a more reliable land transport link between two major settlements in the colony. The original purpose for NSW railways was to connect primary producers in hinterlands to coastal exporting ports and the line to Parramatta served as the first stage of eventual extensions and branches to Campbelltown, Blacktown and beyond. However, four stations were added between Sydney and Parramatta, effectively making this the first suburban line in Sydney.

Early Market Development

The NSW Government Railways was formed by the acquisition of the Sydney Railway Company in 1855 with the purpose of administering all rail transport. Its main priority was building rail links across the entire colony and so the main suburban line was extended towards west to Lithgow, southwest to Goulburn and northwest to Richmond by 1870. This was followed by a northern line branching off from Strathfield to Hornsby built in 1888 and a southern coastal line branching off the main suburban at Redfern completed the same year. While these railways were built with a regional scope, their need to terminate at an eastern central station meant the introduction of a network of railways and stations through the Cumberland Plain and around Port Jackson which would become the backbone of greater Sydney’s suburban rail network.

Until the late 1800s Sydney’s population was better-served by water transport with an extensive ferry network around the harbour and its waterways which dictated the sites city's early development. It was not until the train reached a greater catchment that rail became the primary mode. The first purpose-built suburban railway was completed between Hornsby and St Leonards in 1890 following land booms on the North Shore. This line would later extend to ferry wharf to cross the harbour at Milson’s Point.

Most lines were originally built single track however increases in usage resulted in the duplication of lines with some like the main suburban quadruplicated. This allowed for significant increases in service, something integral to a suburban network. Increased patronage saw the need for a larger new passenger terminal in Sydney which was built on Devonshire Street. This was positioned on the southern end of the city centre and whilst a goods line ran to Darling Harbour, the need for an extension into the city was known and proposed from the infancy of Sydney’s rail network.

The Role of Policy

The birthing phase of Sydney’s suburban railways was influenced by British practices. The inception of the first line was by the private Sydney Railway Company which struggled with capitalisation, in part due to labour shortages. British railways were operated by private companies until WW1, though regulated through government legislation. The government’s acquisition of the company before running commenced therefore deviated from British policies when private ownership failed. Legislation was introduced to allow for land acquisition for new rail alignments.

The colony followed the British in choice of standard gauge, which was not aligned with other colonies in Australia. This led to breaks of gauge at state borders for decades after federation, hindering national development.

The railways continued to be operated by a single, government-owned entity which had different names throughout the 20th century, becoming the State Rail Authority in 1980. In 1989 this agency was split into three divisions with CityRail introduced to operate the metropolitan network.

Growth

Urban public transport needs continued to grow into the 20th century and in 1908 a royal commission was established to examine improvements to the system. In 1915 John Bradfield proposed a circular underground electrified city railway and other integral parts to the modern network, including a harbour crossing and electric traction. Outbreak of WW1 saw the diversion of funds and Bradfield’s plans were postponed.

The expansion of the network was hindered by differing priorities of the Labor and Liberal governments with the construction of the city underground becoming a stop-start operation. It was not opened until 1926 to St James and Museum Stations on the east end of the CBD. Electrification was being introduced concurrently, with the first electric trains running from Central to Oatley on the Illawarra Line the same year. The network was electrified with overhead wires at 1500 volts DC which, while common at the time, would not adapt well to more powerful electric multiple units in the future.

The city circle continued construction, reaching Town Hall and Wynyard in February 1932. The completion of the Sydney Harbour Bridge the following month allowed for North Shore line trains to run into Wynyard and Central, creating a fixed transport link across the harbour. The full circle would not be completed until the completion of the Circular Quay viaduct linking Wynyard to St James and providing a station at Sydney’s ferry terminal.

The global socioeconomic environment of the early 20th century was characterised by two world wars and a depression in between. Whilst the Harbour Bridge and city circle were completed, many of Bradfield’s plans would remain as such. Provisions for future rail extensions, such as stub tunnels and additional platforms, were built at city stations however these never came to fruition. The growth of postwar private motor transport further stalled Sydney’s rail development as road building was prioritised.

Maturity

As Sydney has continued to grow at a sustained rate into the 21st century, the rail network has evolved in different forms. This has physically taken the form of higher residential developments in different areas and sprawling newly-built suburbs on the periphery of the city. The 2000s saw the inception of three new commuter lines in Sydney, the first to open serving as an airport rail link which was integrated into the East Hills suburban line. Such a connection was needed for the upcoming 2000 Olympic Games and it saw the government engage in a public-private partnership to avoid bearing the full cost of the project. This resulted in a surcharge to use all four of the new stations, which from 2011 was covered by the government at the two non-airport stations, Green Square and Mascot. These areas have undergone substantial transit-oriented development since.

The South West Rail Link was conceived in the late 2000s to serve new suburban developments around that region. The two new stations, along with many others in Southwestern Sydney, are surrounded by sparse housing and large car parks which serve the many commuters arriving by car. Some TOD exists at Edmonson Park. Not long before that, the Epping to Chatswood Rail Link was built which linked the North Shore and Main Northern Railway Lines. The alignment expanded the network to new stations at Macquarie Park, a major business centre, and Macquarie University, with a third being built at North Ryde. This demonstrated government desire to increase accessibility to non-CBD commercial centres. A fourth new station was planned to exist at a former UTS campus in Lindfield along with a bridge over the Lane Cove River carrying the line. After these plans were met with objections from local residents, the government chose a longer tunneled alignment at an extra cost of $1 billion.

Quantitative Analysis

Data

Ridership data was sourced from a 2014 report detailing long-term trend statistics for Australian urban passenger transport conducted by BITRE. The report provides comprehensive historical time-series on passenger movement within the Australian capital cities, covering more than a century, contrast changes over time in patronage on urban public transport (UPT) systems with the corresponding patterns of private road vehicle use. The data features Sydney Suburban Rail ridership figures from 1900-2013 and this is therefore the time period that will be examined, despite railways existing in the 19th century.

Methodology

A three-paramter logistic model was used to model the preicted ridership and thus lifecycle of Sydney Suburban Rail.

$S(t)={\frac {S_{max}}{1+e^{-b(t-t_{i})}}}$

where:

• S(t) is the status measure, in this case passenger-kilometres (total distance travelled by all passengers)
• t is time (years)
• ti is the inflection time, in this case 1955
• S_max is saturation status level, chosen to be the maximum reported value
• b is a coefficient to be estimated through regression analysis

Results and Interpretation

Graph of Actual vs Predicted Ridership from 1900-2013

Year	Passenger-Kilometres (Billions)	Predicted Passenger-Kilometres (Billions
1900	0.24	0.455625
1901	0.26	0.474415
1902	0.29	0.493906
1903	0.31	0.514117
1904	0.33	0.535069
1905	0.34	0.556781
1906	0.36	0.579274
1907	0.41	0.602566
1908	0.47	0.626679
1909	0.52	0.65163
1910	0.55	0.677439
1911	0.63	0.704125
1912	0.73	0.731707
1913	0.83	0.7602
1914	0.92	0.789624
1915	0.96	0.819993
1916	1.01	0.851324
1917	1.05	0.88363
1918	1.03	0.916925
1919	1.08	0.951223
1920	1.27	0.986532
1921	1.35	1.022865
1922	1.36	1.060227
1923	1.40	1.098627
1924	1.46	1.138069
1925	1.48	1.178556
1926	1.51	1.22009
1927	1.64	1.262669
1928	1.73	1.306292
1929	1.80	1.350951
1930	1.77	1.396641
1931	1.53	1.443352
1932	1.56	1.49107
1933	1.62	1.539782
1934	1.74	1.589469
1935	1.96	1.640113
1936	2.11	1.691689
1937	2.21	1.744172
1938	2.35	1.797535
1939	2.34	1.851747
1940	2.25	1.906773
1941	2.44	1.962579
1942	2.78	2.019125
1943	3.03	2.07637
1944	3.21	2.134271
1945	3.27	2.192782
1946	3.48	2.251854
1947	3.42	2.311438
1948	3.49	2.371482
1949	3.53	2.431933
1950	3.48	2.492735
1951	3.67	2.553831
1952	3.57	2.615165
1953	3.74	2.676677
1954	3.87	2.738308
1955	3.95	2.8
1956	4.08	2.861692
1957	4.06	2.923323
1958	4.00	2.984835
1959	3.99	3.046169
1960	4.05	3.107265
1961	4.04	3.168067
1962	4.03	3.228518
1963	4.10	3.288562
1964	4.21	3.348146
1965	4.18	3.407218
1966	4.12	3.465729
1967	4.09	3.52363
1968	4.07	3.580875
1969	3.99	3.637421
1970	4.05	3.693227
1971	4.10	3.748253
1972	3.54	3.802465
1973	3.44	3.855828
1974	3.41	3.908311
1975	3.37	3.959887
1976	3.17	4.010531
1977	3.14	4.060218
1978	3.09	4.10893
1979	3.09	4.156648
1980	3.52	4.203359
1981	3.64	4.249049
1982	3.76	4.293708
1983	3.55	4.337331
1984	3.47	4.37991
1985	3.44	4.421444
1986	3.71	4.461931
1987	3.78	4.501373
1988	4.08	4.539773
1989	4.13	4.577135
1990	4.23	4.613468
1991	4.30	4.648777
1992	4.20	4.683075
1993	4.03	4.71637
1994	4.13	4.748676
1995	4.40	4.780007
1996	4.50	4.810376
1997	4.64	4.8398
1998	4.67	4.868293
1999	4.74	4.895875
2000	4.90	4.922561
2001	5.27	4.94837
2002	4.89	4.973321
2003	4.89	4.997434
2004	4.94	5.020726
2005	4.96	5.043219
2006	5.05	5.064931
2007	5.22	5.085883
2008	5.51	5.106094
2009	5.49	5.125585
2010	5.32	5.144375
2011	5.27	5.162485
2012	5.47	5.179934
2013	5.51	5.196741

The r-squared value for this fit was 0.8637, reasonably close to 1.0. The predicted curve roughly traces the reported data, and this is verified by having a high t_i value.

Using the chart, key phases in the lifecycle of Sydney Suburban Rail can be determined:

Birthing Phase: 1900 - 1925 covered the inception of the network until the first advancements in electrification and underground alignment.

Growth Phase: 1925 - 1980 saw mass electrification and the introduction of private motor travel.

Maturity Phase: 1980 - present.