Exclusive: The cost of the NSW government’s new fleet of Spanish-built passenger trains is set to blow out by more than $1 billion – doubling the bill for taxpayers
A $1 billion blowout will put the cost of the entire new passenger train project, which includes a maintenance contract, at nearly $4 billion.
Creating a major headache for the government weeks out from the state election, a blowout in the cost of the 29 trains and infrastructure upgrades to almost $2.5 billion will double the bill, which had been estimated in last year’s budget at $1.26 billion. The latest estimate is higher than a confidential figure in August by Transport for NSW, which warned of an $827 million funding gap.with a consortium led by Spanish manufacturer CAF, which is building the fleet, for the last 18 months over “contentious design changes” sought by the agency to the trains.
‘Poor scoping, cost overruns, schedule delays and unmitigated risks are key features of this project.’“The time taken for the new train design work and the erosion of the relationship with the [public-private] partners has put significant additional pressure, time and cost risk onto the project,” it states.
Major delays to the project mean passengers will be stuck travelling on decades-old XPT, Xplorer and Endeavour trains much longer than planned, which poses risks to the reliability of services and increases maintenance costs.
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