20 years ago- the 1992 CityRail timetable

In January 1992, CityRail introduced a new timetable. The timetable was the most significant alteration to suburban and intercity working for some time, and was not without controversy.

The goals of the timetable were to provide a better service from outer suburban areas to the city, at some expense to inner suburbs and a reduction in pre peak hour services in the mornings. Secondly, the timetable introduced a reduction in single deck "red rattler" services with their confinement to the Inner West and Bankstown line services prior to their complete withdrawal shortly after. 8-car length single deck trains were discontinued, with the only single deck cars left being those matched with double deck Tulloch trailers in W-sets.

The Richmond line, which was fully electrified the year before, saw the first through-running of services between Richmond and the city (initially only 4 cars trains until the power supply was upgraded later in the year to support 8-car trains). The two car L Sets that operated Richmond- Riverstone shuttles were replaced with 4-cars sets.

Other features of the new timetable were:
- Cowan was no longer the northern boundary of suburban services, with Northern line services terminating one station south at Berowra
- Sandown line services officially withdrawn (they actually stopped running in December 1991).
- the withdrawal of most through Southern Highlands services to Central, most services now operated as shuttles south of Campbelltown in a similar manner to today
- withdrawal of Kingsgrove as a terminating location for trains, not to be reinstated until quadruplication was completed
- withdrawal of Chatswood as a train terminating location
- cancellation of local 2-car Newcastle- Fassifern services
- reduction of single deck U-sets from most Central Coast / Newcastle services
- loss of the separate Saturday and Sunday timetables , now grouped together as 'Weekends'
- reduction in weekend Eastern Suburbs line frequency from 10 to 15 minutes.
- a 10% reduction in the number of train sets needed to operate the timetable.


CountryLink timetables were also modified but there were only timing changes.

The physical timetables had a newer look, with glossy full colour covers and a new map on the reverse. Below is the Campbelltown via Liverpool line as an example.

Note that the map has lost the Royal National Park and Sandown branches.

In the middle of the timetable was a further pair of glossy pages, with a guide to station facilities in the middle, and some passenger info on the reverse.

The actual timetable itself was in a similar layout to previously.