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weekender the western
Friday, October 18, 2024
PENRITH’S #1 NEWSPAPER
www.westernweekender.com.au
What’s on the box? TV Guide Pages 40-41
PARTY POLITICS OUT AS NEW COUNCIL PROMISES...
PENRITH FIRST
New Councillors have gathered for the first time, promising a Penrith-first approach to their term. Emily Chate reports on Pages 3, 5
GOVERNMENT, COMMUTERS HOLD BREATH AS NEW TRAIN TIMETABLE LAUNCHES
STAYING ON TRACK T
he State Government says its new train timetable – which commences on Monday – will make services more reliable and resilient. But commuters just hoping to get to and from work on time will be hoping there’s no
repeat of the 2017 debacle, when the new timetable sparked chaos across the network. The Government says there won’t be a repeat of the meltdown of seven years ago, but there will no doubt be plenty of nerves when the new timetable launches for the morning peak. The new timetable has been partly sparked by the Sydney Trains Review, which found that since the 2017 timetable was introduced,
the resilience of the train network has significantly deteriorated. The new adjustments are designed to make the system more resilient and to implement the lessons learned since the introduction of the 2017 timetable. “A simpler timetable makes the network more reliable allowing it to recover from incidents faster,” said Hayden Donoghue from Sydney Trains.
“We’ll be monitoring the new timetable closely and identifying where we can make further improvements.” Western Line services have not met on-time running targets in the PM Peak once since the Minns Government came to power in 2023, an ongoing frustration for commuters. Full story on » p. 12
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TROY DODDS