Premier Chris Minns said the opening would be a "huge moment" for south-west Sydney and thanked the thousands of commuters, families and local businesses for their patience during the conversion of the line to metro train standards. "This is about giving people in south-west Sydney the same fast, reliable public transport connections that other parts of our city enjoy. It's an investment that will make a real difference to these communities for generations to come," he said.
The first passenger service will depart at 4.31am on Friday, October 30. Train frequencies will match the rest of the M1 line: every four minutes during weekday peak hours, every five minutes between 10am and 3pm, and every 10 minutes in the evenings and on weekends. Services will be boosted to every seven minutes on the first weekend, October 31 to November 1, to accommodate expected interest.
Travel time savings are significant. A trip from Canterbury to Chatswood will take 31 minutes, a saving of 23 minutes compared to the previous heavy rail commute, while Lakemba to Victoria Cross in North Sydney will take 37 minutes, saving 24 minutes.
The government conceded there "may be some minor teething issues as services get under way" and will roster extra metro staff for the new services. To assure safety regulators, three platform screen doors will remain closed at Dulwich Hill station, and one each at Canterbury, Campsie and Marrickville, due to curved platforms that require 170 mechanical gap fillers to be installed at eight stations.
A new rail timetable for the Sydney Trains network will be introduced on November 15, with all T4 trains stopping at Sydenham station to enable passengers to switch to the driverless metro line.
The opening of the south-west section ends a prolonged period of disruption. The T3 Bankstown line between Sydenham and Bankstown was shut in September 2024 to convert the 130-year-old heavy rail line to metro standards. In mid-2018, the former Coalition government told commuters the line would need to close for three to six months. Even before the shutdown, the Minns government had warned it might last longer than the initial 12-month estimate. The delay pushed the opening about two weeks later than a "mid-October" target cited in confidential Sydney Metro documents.
The replacement buses, known as the Southwest Link, cost taxpayers about $200 million and significantly lengthened commutes. The total cost of the city and south-west sections of the 66-kilometre M1 line is now forecast at up to $23 billion, up from $21.6 billion, with the increase largely attributed to the final stage.