SYDNEY, Oct. 30 (Xinhua) -- The final stage of a major Sydney rail project opened to commuters on Friday morning after nine years of construction, connecting the city's southwest suburbs to the northwest.
The first service on the Southwest Metro line departed Bankstown Station, 16 km southwest of central Sydney, at 4:31 a.m. local time on Friday, making 10 stops at new stations on the way to connecting to the Metro City Line, which opened in 2024, at Sydenham in the city's inner-west.
The completion of the new line means that driverless trains can travel directly along 66 km of track from Bankstown to Tallawong, 36 km northwest of central Sydney, via the CBD and a tunnel under the Sydney harbor.
Construction on the project began in 2017 and cost 23 billion Australian dollars (about 16.2 billion U.S. dollars), up from an initial estimate of 11.5 billion AUD.
Services on the new line will operate every four minutes during peak commuter hours, every five minutes outside those times on weekdays and every 10 minutes on weekends and evenings.
A further expansion of the new underground metro network connecting the major population center of Parramatta, 20 km west of central Sydney, to the CBD is expected to open in 2032. ■