page_title: Railways in Sydney
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Railways in Sydney / History
caption_attribution_description: Sydney railway system in 1894, as depicted on old 1894 map of Sydney here. (which had fallen in the public domain due to age) This is before the harbour bridge linked the north shore line with the lines in sydney city; before the city circle, bankstown and east hills lines; and when central was called Redfern.
context_page_description: Sydney, the largest city in Australia, has an extensive network of passenger and freight railways. The passenger system includes an extensive suburban railway network, operated by Sydney Trains, a metro network and a light rail network. A dedicated freight network also exists. Future expansion of the light rail network includes the newly opened CBD and South East Light Rail, and the planned Parramatta Light Rail.
  Central station is the major terminus for Sydney Trains suburban services, while Sydney Terminal serves NSW TrainLink regional and intercity services and the Dulwich Hill Line. Great Southern Rail's Indian Pacific train service to Perth also departs from here.
  Sydney's suburban rail network is the busiest in Australia, with over 359 million journeys made in the 2017-18 financial year.
context_section_description: The first railway in Sydney was opened in 1855 between Sydney and Granville, now a suburb of Sydney but then a major agricultural centre. The railway formed the basis of the New South Wales Government Railways. Passenger and freight services were operated from the beginning. By 1880, there was half hourly service to Homebush.
  In 1884, the railway opened from Strathfield to Hornsby. The North Shore line opened in 1893 to a harbour side station at Milson's Point, and was originally built because parliament thought it would be a shorter route for country produce from the north to Sydney Harbour (a role it has never fulfilled). Sydney's first deliberately suburban railway was a line to Belmore which opened in 1896 and was soon extended to Bankstown.
  Sydney's suburban passenger service was severely hampered by the inconvenient location of its city terminus, at a site south of Devonshire Street. Most of Sydney's population was well served by trams, and the suburban railways had a relatively small initial role to play. This was to change in the 1920s.
  The railway system as it exists today is really the result of the vision and foresight of John Bradfield, one of Australia's most respected and famous civil engineers. He was involved in the design and construction of Sydney underground railways in the 1920s and 1930s, but he is more famous for the associated design and construction of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Bradfield's vision for metro-style subways in Sydney was inspired by the subways he observed in Paris, London and New York City.
caption: Sydney's rail system in 1894.
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