They arrived well before dawn, some from across the city or even from other states. Hundreds of people, some with signs or handmade shirts, others with hair dyed or nails painted for the occasion, waited in line, hoping to be among the first to glimpse the new arrival in Sydney. They were joined by just about every news media outlet in the city.
When the train pulled into the station, the crowd burst into claps and cheers.
A key segment of Sydney’s new metro train line opened early on Monday with a level of fanfare usually associated with celebrity appearances or pop concerts. In a mostly car-dependent country where public transportation in major cities can be best described as “decent,” the expansion, which featured expansive, “cathedral-like” stations and spacious, driverless trains, felt momentous.
The new section, which connects Sydenham, an inner-west neighborhood of Sydney, to Chatswood, in the north, runs under the city’s business district and crosses under the Harbor Bridge. It is the second part of the metro project to open, after a northern section that started operating in 2019. Several more segments are under construction, expected to open over the next decade. They all form part of a new rail system that updates and integrates with Sydney’s existing rail network, which was mostly built between the 1850s and early 1900s, said David Levinson, a transportation professor at the University of Sydney.
The news media covered the opening in breathless terms. The national broadcaster ABC described a ride on the metro as “a bit like something from a science fiction movie.” One journalist marveled at “just how much space there is for commuters.” Broadcasting live from inside a moving train, another reporter said, “I am hanging on for dear life here.” (The trains can travel up to speeds of 100 kilometers, or 62 miles, per hour, according to the transportation agency for New South Wales, of which Sydney is the capital.)
To be clear, the new trains are not revolutionary. They resemble, on a smaller scale, the subways of Tokyo, Seoul or Hong Kong. The metro was built by a consortium led by Hong Kong’s MTR rail company.
“It’s not something super amazing,” Professor Levinson said. “It’s state-of-the-art, but lots of systems are state-of-the-art.”
But they are a big departure from Sydney’s usual trains, and the New South Wales transportation agency has taken to social media to inform commuters of the differences. The seats run along the edge of the train carriage, facing each other, with a large space in the middle for standing passengers; normal Sydney trains have double-decker carriages, filled with rows of seats that can be flipped to face the train’s front or back. The new trains run frequently enough that travelers don’t need to check the timetable, a welcome change for commuters. Also, passengers are separated from the rails by a barrier along the platform, a new safety protocol.
Among the train and public transportation enthusiasts who rode the first service, which departed Sydenham station at 4:54 a.m., were Jimmy Wu and Nyilawoan Oatsomm, along with a dozen fellow members of the University of New South Wales Railway Society. Mr. Wu and Mr. Oatsomm had left their homes at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., they said, to make it to Sydenham station by 4 a.m.
“It was a really historic moment,” Mr. Oatsomm said.
“It’s amazing to be able to say that we here in Sydney also have an awesome metro just like these other big cities,” said Josh Barton, 42, who was also on that first ride.
In a small way, the metro project has revitalized Australia’s understanding of itself and what it can achieve, wrote Howard MacLean, a housing and public transit proponent. The opening on Monday sparked the realization that “our idea about who we are has shifted under our feet,” he wrote. “The vision of Australia as postwar car-dependent suburbia blinked, and something new and grander peeked through instead.”
“Australia has always been in a state of transition, between where we are, and where we’re going,” he added. “Sydney Metro is a glimpse into that future — and how it could be very good.”
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