The Sydney Trains K sets are a class of

electric multiple unit An electric multiple unit or EMU is a multiple-unit train consisting of self-propelled carriages using electricity as the motive power. An EMU requires no separate locomotive, as electric traction motors are incorporated within one or a numbe ...

s that currently operate on the

Sydney Trains Sydney Trains is the operator of the suburban passenger rail network serving the city of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The network is a hybrid urban- suburban rail system with a central underground core that covers over of track and 170 ...

network. Built by A Goninan & Co, the K sets first entered service in 1981 operating under the

State Rail Authority The State Rail Authority, a former statutory authority of the Government of New South Wales, operated and maintained railways in the Australian state of New South Wales from July 1980 until December 2003. History The ''Transport Authorities Ac ...

, and later

CityRail CityRail was a passenger railway brand operated by the State Rail Authority from 1989 to 2003 and by RailCorp from 2003 to 2013 with services in and around Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, the three largest cities in New South Wales, Australia ...

. The carriages are of stainless steel, double deck construction and share much of their design with the older S sets. All of the 40 K sets originally built (160 carriages) remain in service and are currently the oldest in the Sydney Trains fleet.

Design & construction

The K sets were the first New South Wales suburban trains to be air conditioned and have headlights. Two orders were placed for the K sets with all manufactured between 1981 and 1985 by A Goninan & Co in

Broadmeadow Broadmeadow is the geographic center of Newcastle city. Its main commercial hub is located at the "Nineways". The first order featured low mounted upper deck windows, cream and brown interiors, and unpainted fronts. The second order featured higher mounted upper deck windows, yellow and mustard interiors and

candy livery fronts. The first four trailers were built as driving trailers allowing them to operate in two-car formation, although in practice they were formed into four carriage sets and often ran together as one eight-car set until 1988. These also differed in the subsequent deliveries in being fitted with air conditioning from new, rather than pressure ventilation. To provide a spare, C3550 & T4216 were also built with air conditioning. All ten carriages were fitted with different windows, being sheet glass with small opening hoppers. This was replaced with sheet glass in 1993. To accommodate the air conditioning and associated equipment, the

pantograph A pantograph (, from their original use for copying writing) is a mechanical linkage connected in a manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen. If a line dr ...

had to be shifted to the adjacent trailer car to which the power car is semi-permanently coupled with high voltage cables connecting the two cars. Although some power cars and trailers have been broken up and married with others during periods of heavy maintenance, many original combinations remain. The control carriages have a flat front, with headlights at the top. They were built with four sets of marker lights, standard at the time. Different combinations of white marker lights were used to indicate different destinations. Flip-dot destination displays were installed later on, which covered the upper middle marker light. Since destination displays have been installed, marker light combinations are no longer necessary, so usually only the two upper marker lights are used. However, some trains still retain the switch for the lower marker light. The front of the train also has an emergency door for the guard compartment and

windscreen wiper A windscreen wiper, windshield wiper, wiper blade (American English), or simply wiper, is a device used to remove rain, snow, ice, washer fluid, water, or debris from a vehicle's front window. Almost all motor vehicles, including cars, truck ...

s for the driver window only. Hoses and receptacles are provided below the windows to connect another set, since, unlike newer trains, the coupler does not carry electrical or air connections. Like other trains of the time, the crew compartment contains a smaller compartment for the driver on the left side (in direction of travel). The guard uses the area outside of the driver's compartment, with two manual hinged doors on either side providing access to platforms. Above these doors, on the outside are blue lights indicating which compartment the guard is in. Each vestibule has two-panel sliding doors on either side. Each door also has a vent underneath the window, which was covered when air-conditioning was installed. The doors cannot detect obstacles and continue pushing against the obstruction until it is removed or the guard reopens the doors. Small orange

LED A light-emitting diode (LED) is a semiconductor Electronics, device that Light#Light sources, emits light when Electric current, current flows through it. Electrons in the semiconductor recombine with electron holes, releasing energy i ...

s are located above the doors on the outside that flash when the doors are closing. They assist the guard in locating doors that haven't closed successfully. All trains were retrofitted with traction interlocking, meaning the driver cannot apply power when the doors are open.

In service

All K sets are crewed with a driver and guard. The guard uses the rear cab on a two or four-car train. On eight car trains, the guard usually uses the 5th carriage so that the entire platform can be seen. However the 4th carriage cab can also be used if there is a problem with the 5th carriage one. All the K sets were delivered to either Hornsby or Punchbowl depots. With the trials on the ten experimental carriages judged successful, in 1986 a programme commenced to retrofit air conditioning to the second order. This saw the Beclawat windows replaced with sheet glass. It would be July 1990 before the programme was completed. In April 1989, K sets commenced operating peak-hour services via the North Shore line to

Gosford Gosford is the city and administrative centre of the Central Coast Council local government area in the heart of the Central Coast region, about north of Sydney and about south of Newcastle. The city centre is situated at the northern extre ...

. This was extended to

Wyong Wyong () is a town in the Central Coast of New South Wales, located approximately 63 km SSW of Newcastle and 89 km NNE of Sydney. Established in 1888, it is one of the two administrative centres for the local government area. Hist ...

in January 1992. In September 1990, all Punchbowl based sets were transferred to Hornsby. In January 1991, four sets were transferred to

Flemington Maintenance Depot The Flemington Maintenance Depot is the largest Sydney Trains depot, located in the western Sydney suburb of Lidcombe, but named after Flemington further east. The depot opened in 1927 and was one of four electric train depots built under the ...

to operate peak-hour

Illawarra line The South Coast Railway (also known as the Illawarra Railway) is a commuter and goods railway line from Sydney to Wollongong and Bomaderry in New South Wales, Australia. Beginning at the Illawarra Junction, the line services the Illawarra a ...

services to

Port Kembla A port is a maritime facility comprising one or more wharves or loading areas, where ships load and discharge cargo and passengers. Although usually situated on a sea coast or estuary, ports can also be found far inland, such as Ha ...

. To replace U sets on stopping services between Gosford and

Newcastle Newcastle usually refers to: *Newcastle upon Tyne, a city and metropolitan borough in Tyne and Wear, England *Newcastle-under-Lyme, a town in Staffordshire, England *Newcastle, New South Wales, a metropolitan area in Australia, named after Newcastle ...

, the sets with driving trailers were re-marshaled as two-car sets from October 1996. Following the delivery of the outer suburban Tangara sets in 1994, the K sets ceased operating the Central Coast and Illawarra services. K Set Upper Deck

During the late 1990s, all were refurbished by A Goninan & Co as part of the CityDecker program. This saw the interiors refurbished with white walls and ceilings, grey floors and blue seats. Power cars received a destination indicator and had yellow applied to the lower half of their fronts. Sliding Beclawat windows on the pressure ventilated cars were replaced with hopper windows and doors painted yellow. The first order was finally retrofitted with air conditioning just prior to the

Sydney 2000 Olympics The 2000 Summer Olympics, officially the Games of the XXVII Olympiad and also known as Sydney 2000 (Dharug: ''Gadigal 2000''), the Millennium Olympic Games or the Games of the New Millennium, was an international multi-sport event held from 1 ...

. These cars retained the hopper windows until the late 2000s, but were sealed shut with an adhesive to avoid the loss of air conditioning. After the introduction of a new timetable in October 2009, all K sets were allocated to Hornsby to operate North Shore, Northern & Western line services, operating in 8-car formations. This was due to the noise levels inside trains when operating on the Epping to Chatswood segment. Older S sets lack sufficient sound insulation for passengers, while newer Tangara sets don't have sufficient cooling in the regenerative braking system to deal with extended shuttle runs through the tunnel. In mid-2014, K sets are gradually transferred from Hornsby to Flemington resulting in their resumption of service on the Airport, Inner West & South,

Bankstown Bankstown is a suburb south west of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is 16 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district and is located in the local government area of the City of Canterbury-Bankstown, hav ...

, Carlingford and

Olympic Park An Olympic Park is a sports campus for hosting the Olympic Games. Typically it contains the Olympic Stadium and the International Broadcast Centre. It may also contain the Olympic Village or some of the other sports venues, such as the aquatics c ...

lines. K60 to K86 were previously running these lines, based out of Flemington Depot. Prior to 2017, K87–99 continued to run part-time on the T1 North Shore, Northern & Western lines. In October 2013, the 2 car K Sets (K1–4) were withdrawn from

NSW TrainLink NSW TrainLink is a train and coach operator in Australia, providing services throughout New South Wales and the Australian Capital Territory, along with limited interstate services into Victoria, Queensland and South Australia. Its primary interc ...

Gosford to Newcastle services. The four driving trailers were converted to ordinary trailers at Hornsby and the sets returned to service on Sydney Trains services in March 2014 as K98 and K99. The existing K98 was re-numbered K91. The driver cabins in these carriages were stripped of controls however the actual walls were kept intact. The doors to the driver cabin are kept locked and the blinds are kept down. There are no passenger seats where the crew compartment used to be. Also, unlike converted S set cars, the round window on the crew compartment doors were removed and covered with a metal plate. In July 2017, asbestos was found in the circuit breaker panels, which is inside the driver compartment of the K sets, with all withdrawn for inspection for a few weeks.Asbestos found in Sydney Trains
'' Nova 96.9'' 7 July 2017 All have since returned to service. After the introduction of a new timetable in November 2017, all K sets were transferred to Sector 2. In late 2017 and early 2018, all K sets and C sets were slightly refurbished with all poles and other safety features repainted yellow. In 2019, set K96 was withdrawn from passenger service and had Automatic Train Protection (ATP) equipment installed. It has conducted ATP testing since then and will be retained following the retirement of the rest of the fleet for this purpose. K sets operate on the following lines: *T2

Inner West & Leppington Line The Inner West & Leppington Line (numbered T2, coloured light blue) is a commuter rail service currently operated by Sydney Trains, serving the inner west and south-western regions of Sydney, Australia. Consisting of 37 stops, the service comm ...

Leppington Leppington is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Leppington is located 38 kilometres south-west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government areas of the City of Liverpool and Camden Counci ...

Parramatta Parramatta () is a suburb and major Central business district, commercial centre in Greater Western Sydney, located in the state of New South Wales, Australia. It is located approximately west of the Sydney central business district on the ban ...

City Circle The City Circle is a mostly-underground railway line located in the Sydney central business district and Haymarket, New South Wales, Haymarket, in New South Wales, Australia, that forms the core of Sydney's passenger rail network. The lines a ...

via Granville *T3

Bankstown Line The Bankstown Line (numbered T3, coloured orange) is a commuter rail line operated by Sydney Trains in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It serves Canterbury-Bankstown and parts of the Inner West and Western Sydney. The Bankstown railway li ...

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a popul ...

Lidcombe Lidcombe is a suburb in western Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Lidcombe is located west of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of Cumberland Council, with a small industrial part in the north ...

via

*T8 Airport and South Line: Macarthur to

via

Airport An airport is an aerodrome with extended facilities, mostly for commercial air transport. Airports usually consists of a landing area, which comprises an aerially accessible open space including at least one operationally active surface ...

Sydenham Sydenham may refer to: Places Australia * Sydenham, New South Wales, a suburb of Sydney ** Sydenham railway station, Sydney * Sydenham, Victoria, a suburb of Melbourne ** Sydenham railway line, the name of the Sunbury railway line, Melbourne ...

They were formerly in operation on the T6 Carlingford line until it was closed in January 2020.

References

External links

Technical diagrams and specifications
Transport for NSW {{NSWLocos, state=collapsed Double-decker EMUs Electric multiple units of New South Wales Sydney Trains Train-related introductions in 1981 1500 V DC multiple units of New South Wales

Design & construction

In service

Further reading

References

External links