Secrets of the Sydney Metro Northwest 

Legend has it that he’s still waiting at Chatswood until this very day…

As someone who lives on Platform 2 at Chatswood waiting for the first train to Sydenham, Sharath is indeed still waiting here, he even edited this entire video at Chatswood station, I write this comment as I stare into his soul on the other platform, once again, waiting for a train to Sydenham like me!! :)

Sharath there is even a more out of date map at croydon station near the opal gates. It still has the epping to chatswood rail link on it

North Ryde station is located near the dead centre of Ryde.

So many memories unearthed here in this video.... I remember when the Totally Home shops were there a long time ago! Feels like this video should be titled "Secrets of the Sydney Metro Northwest and history of the Hills"!

North Ryde station is built at the dead centre of town. People are dying to get there. It would have been a grave mistake to miss it.

I can't understand why they didn't start the Metro from Schofields. If they did it would allow people who need to get to places served by the Metro to change trains at Schofields. The Metro is going to be extended from Tallawong to St. Marys in the future. They should extend the Metro to at least Schofields and eliminate the bus connection.

Can confirm Sharath was still standing at Chatswood both this morning on my way to work and coming home today

I moved the Hills area and stopped using the trains for a long time. The metro connects many important places in my daily life. I could catch it to work (2 locations), go to Castle Hill shopping centre, Macquarie shopping centre, and Chatswood CBD. My parents lives 2 blocks from Crows Nest etc. From August I could take the train to Hurstville, changing in Martin Place to save me 90 minutes driving in peak hour.

Fun fact about the unique colours at each station: the corresponding colour correlates with the type of farming that used to be used undertaken in the area over 100 years ago. Apples, oranges, cherries, sunflowers etc. a cool fact buried deep in the urban design reports!

The Geoff Marshall reference and the Ferris Bueller parody were both exceptional. Looking forward to more Sydney Metro Secrets when the next stage opens.

2:17 That's my fact right there! Thank you so much for using it Sharath! I love your videos!

I think the funniest part about North Ryde station being located next to a cemetery is that Sharath didn't realise that the same applies to Rouse Hill.

The bridge over the M2 in North Ryde became known as the Christopher Cassaniti Bridge in honour of the teen who got crushed to death by scaffolding at a Macquarie Park construction site in 2019.

Dural’s most famous for It’s A Knockout (before the residents complained about the noise, ultimately resulting in the show’s cancellation)

5:55 WAHEY HE USED MY FACT! Let it be known that the only reason I know about those outdated maps is that I work at Mullane’s Hotel across the road. Spotted it when I was headed home one night, thought it was a neat little relic!

11:35 The other day I went to Parramatta's Westfield. It legitimately felt like I was trapped in a labyrinth like the Minotaur from Greek mythology. I assure you that Macquarie Center is definitely an okay place to navigate.

Hi Sharath I saw you today when I got off the tram in civic - I forgot to ask you when you were doing an episode on the Southern Highlands line? From what I remember I think you were looking at doing it soon ish...

Amazing as always! I especially loved that map of the Rogans Hill Line. Those colours of the stations west of Epping are amazing, I had no idea, what genius!

9:04 Actually the largest gap is between Holsworthy and Glenfield, which stands at 8 kilometers.

You have captured all the places I use to visit. Love your video!

There need to be a railway line that extends out from Castle Hill to Dural, Kenthurst, Galston, Fagan Park, Middle Dural, Arcadia, Fiddletown, Glenorie to Forest Glen. This will definitely help ease the growing population within this part of Sydney. Thanks Sharath for that beautiful vlog. 👍😊💚👋

Not sure if anyone else still remembers, but the initial services for the Epping - Chatswood Rail Link (ECRL) was worked entirely by K sets from 2010 to around 2013 after the full length of the services was integrated into the then-CityRail network (initially, only H sets/Oscars ran the shuttle services). No other rollingstock worked the line on a regular basis until 2013. Apparently this was due to the other trains potentially not being able to push another broken down set out of the tunnels from around the Lane Cove River to Chatswood.

A fun fact I forgot to submit, you can see headlights of the next metro train to macquarie uni if you look down the end of the platform towards macquarie park station (if a train is due soon) because the tunnels are perfectly straight in this section

Thanks .. I never expected to be so entertained ..😂

Love your videos.. funny and informative. Good job!!

Great video mate. Keep them coming. I too hate that Tallawong and Schofields are not connected.

The class difference between Blacktown and surrounding suburbs compared to the Hills always blows my mind, despite only being a 15 min drive apart. Bella Vista is only 2-3 suburbs away from Blacktown and to hear that it's the "Vaucluse" of the Hills feels sort of surreal. I imagine no future metro will link the areas despite the proximity which is so frustrating. In 2021 when I was commuting to Rouse Hill from Mount Druitt, I had to train it to Seven Hills, take a 40min bus to Macquarie Park, and then a metro ride to Rouse Hill. All in about an hour and a half.. It shouldn't be that difficult. I was essentially made to go an entire loop around to get to work.If I drove, it'd take me 20 mins.

Re Castle Hill station, the mechanical signal was (last time I saw it) near the playground area - unless it’s since been removed. I have photos of it here and now, plus the original one from early 2000s. Little known fact: my name is credited on a display at the eastern end of the grounds, for providing pre-station photos of the original park here.

‘NIMBY’ here. I was at the protest in the 90s against the bridge at LCNP. I am a public transport evangelist. But Sydney is unique in that it has national parks throughout. The bit of LCNP down at the weir is the most popular bit. Putting a rail bridge across it would have completely destroyed its amenity and made it a really horrible place to be (think of the noise from an elevated bridge!) and you certainly wouldn’t have been able to enjoy the national park there. I don’t think PT should come at the expense of our parks, surely we can have both? The main issue was that the original designers thought it would be an ok thing to ruin the park in the first place, and it makes me wonder how much lobbying power UTS had to get their tiny little ‘back of Lindfield’ campus a train station in the first place? It would have surely been one of Sydney’s most least used. My understanding is once the bridge idea was scrapped, they dumped the UTS station because of its depth (and probable expense of that wasn’t worth it for such a little used station), but I’d be interested to know how much extra expense was added to the whole line (if any). Sure, it’s deeper now, but you save the expense of the station, and the tiny cut and cover under the river surely wasn’t a huge expense.

6:55 West of Epping, not east. Great vid!

Cute cameraman. Great smile! ☺️

This Schofields Tallawong connection is nightmare !

It world be great if you can do a video about the shopping centres. Rouse hill town centre seems really nice.

Hey Bro I saw you today at Town Hall :) Thanks for all updates about metro :)

The NIMBY’s you guys have over there in Sydney are on another level. I honestly haven’t seen any quite as bad here in Perth.

We seriously need a missing links program on Sydney transport. Carlingford to Epping tram, Schofield to Tallawong metro, Leppington to WS airport etc.

Chatswood is my favourite station as well

Lachlan's Line Bridge looks very similar to the Peace Bridge in Calgary, Alberta! With some minor differences in elevation and curvature :P

I love Macquarie Shopping centre. I agree it was very confusing for me too at the beginning. 😃

How did I live in Epping for a year and never notice the missing platform 4???

Wait… the outdated map contains the metro AND the carlingford line?! I never saw that map since it only existed for 7 months😅

Please do the other lines🙏 would be awesome!

13:25 BitTorrent open? You wouldn't steal a train Sharath!

11:40: I went to Macquarie centre on Sunday July 6, 2024 and yes I almost got lost wandering about there. The Ice rink is nice though lol

Great video again, good to see you missed the rain…

My first job was across the road from what is now Bella Vista Station. I had to catch 2 (sometimes 3) buses each way from Pennant Hills. Now it's 2 short, very frequent train trips! That 100 years without trains to Castle Hill was frustrating as hell

Cries from Melbourne with Fawkner Station which inside the cemetery

Macqaurie centre development plans include a pedestrian link to the metro station.

Defies belief that they didn't extend to Schofields giving the Hawkesbury good connections with the Hills.

Hoping you do a video on the disused Mudgee/Gwebegar railway branch and the Picton-Mittagong railway loop line. You could stop at the Railway Museum at Thirlmere.

Worse still, not only is the Tallawong to Schofields link missing, but they’ve also built houses in the potential future corridor. And don’t get me started on continuing it to Marsden Park.

‘Dead centre of town’ was right there for North Ryde station

The GNB would not allow the use of the name "Cudgegong" as it contravenes their newer policy of using names already in existence. The station was next to Cudgegong Road and close to Tallawong Road so, with the Councils inane action to divide older suburbs, the area was renamed Tallawong.

For some reason, at Epping station’s ‘platform 4’ is not level with train doors and a ridiculous legnth away from the train, as if it was never supposed to exist at all

I suspect they design these systems so they don’t connect up at the ends so that, when the government comes back with money to do it, they can upsell them to do a whole new line. They do the same thing for roads, too, like how the M4 used to just end at Strathfield and dump the traffic onto Parramatta Rd. And by “suspect” I mean “was told this by one of Sydney’s transport experts”

lol 11:46 the first time I came to Macquarie Centre, it was like a maze, I was lost, not much signage as well

Distance between Schofields and Tallawong is 3.9kms. It would have been smarter to continue the Metro line from Rouse Hill to Vineyard via the Box Hill Growth Precinct.

Extension of metro to St Maris via Schofields will be a great capital investment. I hope government allocate budget for that in the near future !

"Macquarie Centre is probably the most confusing shopping centre I've ever been in." I've never been there to compare, but have you been to Chermside Shopping Centre in Brisbane? I strongly suspect it'd at the very least give Macquarie a run for its money.

Thank you for the upload I have lived in Sydney my entire and only been to Chatswood about 2-3 times

Could be worse- could be Tullawong (Caboolture)! Oh and Bella Vista is full of loaded people because of nearby Hillsong Church! in the Business Park! And loving the Geoff Marshall shoutout!

"There's fuck all in dural" - quote of the day!

11:11 very similar to how Westfield century city in Los Angeles blocked having an entrance to the new purple line subway station

That train leaving from Chatswood sounds exactly like the Jubilee line trains on the London Underground. There must be a story there.

There used to be a White Hart Inn restaurant near the intersection of Windsor and Old Windsor Road as well.

There's actually a second train station that bore 'University' in the name - Warabrook (University) used to appear on published materials following its opening in 1995

There is also Warabrook (university) station on the hunter line too, for newcastle university.

I once fell asleep on the metro and got the see what goes past Chatswood.... It just looks and goes back to tallawong

also between cherrybrook and Epping, I have seen like a bit of an opening in the tunnel. I have 3 theories for this. 1. It was where they launched the tunnel boring machines not far from the epping stub tunnels and a short section between the former stub tunnels and this opening was contructed using roadheaders. 2. Maybe it was a planned but not built station (future infill station, maybe scrapped due to community opposition, 600m proximity to Beecroft train station etc.) 3. Maybe it was a new set of stub tunnels for a future Epping to Parramatta Rail line or for the T6 (strange though considering this was opened whilst the carlingford line was already in planning/early pre-closure preparations for the Parramatta Light Rail).

North Ryde residents truly come from a land down under. Fun fact: Macquarie Centre was designed by King Minos of Crete and was originally called the “Macquarie Labrynth”. Legend has it that the ghost of his son the Minotaur still can be heard waiting for his billy to boil in the carpark on Level 2.

Fr i bike from tallawong to schofields it shouldnt be that hard to extend the line there

Deakin uni near box hill in Victoria is going to have a railway station as part of the suburban rail loop in the future

They should have used Cherry Red at Cherrybrook for obvious reasons. 😂

Just a correction 9:55, platform 2 is bidirectional, depending on the operations of the time of day. And it is not "fenced off" as it cannot physically accommodate another platform. That fenced section is just the single rail track that platform 2 is using. Space is very tight there, and despite the station being rebuilt for ECRL, no provisions for a fourth platform were considered. Epping station is definitely one of the weirder stations as it has a pretty complex pattern in terms of T9 and CCN services using the above-ground platforms, during the peak and off peak (which is also the by-product of the peak terminating and semi-express T9 services). It definitely doesn't help when it's a very busy interchange station with only 3 platforms when quieter stations like Denistone, Concord West or even Eastwood have 4.

the epping to chatswood section makes me so frustrated. the whole NRWL was managed so poorly and the nimbys didn't help

4:30 look at those quirky little T-Way symbols! I love a bit of whimsy. There's plenty of whimsy in the core-city section of Sydney Metro about to open.

Where would you place the metro stations between Schofields and St Mary’s? I saw a study once where they said people will use cars if it’s more than a 1km walk (to cut to down on carparks/driving) What about one on the old rubbish tip on South St Schofields?

Good guide mate Best Regards Andrew

There are other cross-platform transfers at Central (T2-T9, T3-T9, sometimes T3-T8) and Town Hall (T1-T3, T2-T3, T3-T4, sometimes T4-T8). It depends on which direction you're changing, though.

It’s clear they are waiting to create a larger interchange so are holding off connecting them till they have all the details sorted out including accommodating other transport links

Great Video.

The actual reason that the Parramatta to Epping rail link was cancelled was because the transport minister at the time, Michael Costa under Labor, decided that the upgrade of Windsor Road to the Northwest was more in the publics interest rather than an alternative rail route to the city that would have seen a major upgrade to the Carlingford rail line plus an extension through Castle Hill. In reality though, the local government authorities in the Northwest region threatened to refuse the approval of any development applications unless Windsor Road was upgraded. Therefore, Costa redirected money from the Epping to Parramatta line to Windsor road thus destroying any chances of an integrated connection between the two sub-CBDs. The man was/is an ass and this ultimately led to the introduction of Metros. Initially, the whole Northwest line was supposed to be a fully integrated part of the existing network but Premier Gladys Berejiklian lied to everyone to get elected and then renigged on her original election promise.

I genuinely got stuck at macquarie centre the first time i went there. Theres no proper directional signage and the spiral always confused me. Find the foodcourt and go up those escalators.

I’m from the hills also I would not mind coming along with you sometime next time you think of filming another one love your vids tho ❤.

6:54 you mean west right

It's awful how there is no metro connection between Tallawong and Schofields and no light rail connection between Carlingford and Epping.

7:18 the colours of each station are the colours of a leaf throughout the seasons. The shape of the entry canopies are also in the shape of leaves too 🧐

Very good video

I always wonder where the “AAAUGH” and “Woohoo!” sounds you use are from.

Why isn't the transfer at Town Hall from the Illawarra line a true cross pllatform transfer?

BTW Eastwood has 4 bubble tea shops in a ROW and I think a total of 9 in the whole suburb? (Maybe more)

4:43 THATS MEEEEEEE

Ummm, stations west of Epping have colour differentiation.😊

surprised you didnt mention a quirk of the metro is the lady robot mispronounces tallawong as tarrawong.

Macquarie centre is the most confusing. Come to Victoria and say Hi to Melbourne Central. 😂

Huge kudos to Sharath for doing some very publicly embarrassing things in public! In this video, pretending to sleep on the metro possibly in front of people, (and the whole town hall video). that's some very great effort!

The lack of a connection from Tallawong to Schofields was a ridiculous choice - especially considering the number of people who commute from the Hills to the West- I assume it was for political/NIMBY reasons. If I was in charge, I'd replace the Bella Vista-Rouse Hill section of the T-Way with infill stations on the metro and use the corridor for a bike track.

There is a proper shared path up Scofield Rd to tallawong. So ride a folding bike between the two stations

they built a skate park on that old historical house site