Welcome to another Train Talk Tuesday! This week we will be looking at the Eastern Suburns Rail line (ESR). The line runs between Redfern and Bondi Junction and has 5 immediate stops locatedat Central, Town Hall, Martin Place, Kings Cross and Edgecliff.
Various plans were made throughout the early 1900s for a line to the Eastern Suburbs including as part of the Bradfield Plan in 1926 which had the line run around the City Cirlce and then under Oxford Strret to Bondi Junction and also a 1947 post war plan which included two lines, one via Kings Cross to Bondi Beach and one via Taylor Square to Kingsford with the potential for an extention to Coogee.
A 1967 plan was devisied following the basis of the 1947 plan via Kings Cross but included extending the line to Kingsford via Randwick instaed of it being a separate line. A 1976 review suggested truncating the line to Bondi Junction, reducing the station amenities and finish qualities, removing Woollahra Station and integrating the line with the Illawarra Line.
The line was opened by Neville Wran in 1979, 53 years after being first proposed and after 31 years of construction work. At the time it was the only Sydney Railway line that used solely Double-Decker trains. It iniatally ran as a shuttle between Bondi Junction and Central before being integrated with the Illawarra Line in 1980. In 2006 the capacity of the line was upgraded from 14 to 20 trains per hour as part of the Rail Clearways.
Today the line operates as part of the T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra Line and also the South Coast Line with services running form Bondi Junction to Redfern and onwards to Cronulla, Hurstville, Kiama, Port Kembla, Waterfall and Wollongong. Services run at least every 5 minutes at peak times and a least every 10 minutes off peak and on weekends.
All services are operated using either T Set (Tangara) or H set (Oscar) trains operating out of Mortdale depot, with the line operating seperate to the rest of the network.
Transport NSW Blog 