00:00It's a case of better late than never, but at least this trip was right on time.
00:13It's always a great day when we have a brand new train for people to jump on board and
00:18to see the opportunity that that brings.
00:21Hundreds of passengers were on board for the inaugural trip from Newcastle.
00:26How are you guys finding the ride?
00:27It's been great, very comfortable, very clean, runs on time, that's the main thing I guess
00:33when you're on a train.
00:34Very quiet, very efficient, love the luggage areas and the charger phone here, there's
00:41some little changes.
00:42Oh it's very comfortable, smooth, five years late.
00:48Known as the Marryoung Fleet, two new trains are being introduced into service, but over
00:54600 carriages remain in storage.
00:57There have needed to be modifications to this train and to the infrastructure that it runs
01:03on.
01:04Now I think those are lessons we need to learn.
01:07For now the service will run exclusively on the Central Coast and Newcastle line, but
01:12it's unclear when exactly they'll be operational on the Blue Mountains and South Coast lines.
01:19When they purchased the train, they didn't understand that it wouldn't fit through the
01:22tunnels on the Blue Mountains and there had to be work done on that.
01:26The rail union also claimed there were security and safety issues with the trains and demanded
01:32cabins reconfigured to keep guards on board.
01:35Because the train was made to be driver only, the crew cabs had to be reconfigured.
01:41The state government hopes the rest of the fleet will be in service by late next year.
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