The Big Lie

O'Farrell at ICAC. Boy, you ought to see him now

The Nazis in Germany developed the theory of the Big Lie: If you keep repeating a falsehood often enough people will come to believe it, however preposterous it may be. The claim that single deck trains can carry more passengers per hour than double deck trains of the same length has been chanted relentlessly since the Iemma government started broadcasting computer-generated videos of driverless trains pulling into underground stations with glass partitions lining the platforms with doors that open when the train arrives, as at Olympic Park. Barry O'Farrell chanted the same dogma before his fall from grace.

Out of the Blue

Baird has said that if he is elected he will consider he has a mandate to sell the urban electricity distribution network. The "Rapid Transit plan" that he released as the justification for this move had no prior disclosure and differs from the now-published Rail Future C.

Rapid Transit plan1

Rail Future C had turnbacks for the single deck trains at Cabramatta and Lidcombe. Baird's plan is for all single deck trains to turnback at Bankstown - God knows how.

Clearly for single deck trains to deliver any alleged reduced dwell times at stations every platform from turnback to turnback must conform to the same standards. Driverless trains in the civilised world are tube systems running in tunnels with barriers holding passengers back for the length of the platforms. This is not possible in a nineteenth century train line running on the surface.

The Historic Bankstown Rail Line

Bankstown Station

The line from Sydenham to Belmore was built from 1880 to 1895 and was extended to Bankstown by 1909. With the completion of the City Circle trains looped through the Inner West line and the Bankstown line at Birrong. Ms Berejiklian put an end to this without revealing her evil intentions in 2013 when turn backs were established at Cabramatta and Lidcombe.

Inner West services degraded

There are 21 stations between Sydenham station and the turn backs so it is hardly surprising that the systemically-dishonest Premier of NSW should try to conceal the full extent of the plans of Transport for NSW. It is unprecedented however for a State Premier to be seen to be involved in such a transparent deceit.

The long haul

Regents Park Station

The dilemma created for Baird by Rod Staples is that the line through Regents Park to Lidcombe Station is a single pair of rails. If the line is converted to driverless single-deck trains along with the line from Birrong to Cabramatta then the only line from Liverpool and Cabramatta to the Inner West is through Granville - a long and tortuous journey. Commuters from Liverpool will be denied fast access to Lidcombe and Olympic Park and the Victoria Road bus services via the Strathfield-Epping rail line. They will also have to change to an Illawarra line train at Sydenham to access stations from Sydenham to Redfern and the City Circle. They will of course do this almost to the last man since if they stay on the single-deck trains they will be dumped deep beneath Central Station or somewhere beneath Pitt Street or maybe Castlereagh Street which does not provide connections to anywhere. The self-appointed Minister for Western Sydney has really stuffed up the people from south-western Sydney.

Seven miles from Sydney

One thousand miles from caring what happens to to anyone south of the Harbour