Sydney underground railways

Lines of Sydney CityRail
  City Circle
Metropolitan services
  Airport and East Hills
  South
  Bankstown
  Inner West
  Illawarra (Eastern Suburbs)
  North Shore
  Western
  Northern
  Cumberland
  Carlingford
  Olympic Park Sprint
Intercity services
  Southern Highlands
  South Coast
  Blue Mountains
  Newcastle and Central Coast
  Hunter Valley
Under construction
  Epping to Chatswood
List of Sydney railway stations

Sydney's underground railways do not form a true metro, because they are extensions of suburban main line services and are not a completely segregated system. However, the underground sections, especially the City Circle, show many of the characteristics of a metro, such as very frequent services. In this way Sydney's railways can be considered a hybrid system. The railways are run by CityRail, an agency of the government of New South Wales.

Because the original underground lines were built in conjunction with the construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, a decision was made to have the lines in shallow tunnels so as to minimise the height difference between the underground rails and their extension across the bridge.

Underground lines

Sydney has at present three main underground lines; a fourth is currently under construction.

There are also vague plans for a new underground line to extend from Epping to Castle Hill, and possibly later to the new development underway at Rouse Hill.

Disused tunnels

Sydney has several disused underground tunnels. The best known of these are those leading out of St. James station. As well as these, there are several disused tunnels and platforms on the Eastern Suburbs line, which like St. James station provided for the possibility four tunnels even though only two were ever built. Most of the stations have these disused platforms adjacent (but walled off from) the platforms currently in use. At Redfern station instead of platforms there is a big open pit in the ground, running from surface to subway level, which in 2000 construction personnel were busy building something in (possibly a car park). The never used platforms at Central are used to store the Archives of the State Rail Authority. Like St. James station, these stations have stub tunnels, although they are much shorter. They were used as scenes in filming the movie The Matrix.

It is possible to access the Redfern pit in the ground and disused tunnels by two ways — there is a hole in the wall opposite the used platforms where people climb in (the one through which sunlight and weeds are visible); it is also reportedly possible to enter the Redfern station stub tunnels from the Everleigh rail yards.

Even though they never were intended to be part of the subway system, one can also mention here the tunnels for the old Pyrmont goods line. One of these runs underneath Railway Square, between the Central station railway yards and the Powerhouse Museum; the other tunnel runs underneath Glebe. The first tunnel is no longer used. The old railway from the Powerhouse Museum to Lilyfield has been converted to form part of the Metro Light Rail line from Central station. The Glebe tunnel is on this section.

Also of interest is a tunnel connecting the Eveleigh rail yards on the southern side of the main line to the northern side of the main line, just past Redfern.

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