The Western Sydney Freight Line (WSFL) is a proposed freight railway line between the Main Western railway line at St Marys and the Southern Sydney Freight Line (SSFL) at Villawood, via a new intermodal terminal near

Eastern Creek Eastern Creek is a suburb of Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Eastern Creek is located west of the Sydney central business district, in the Blacktown local government area and is part of the Greater Western Sydney region. E ...

. The NSW Government committed to establishing a corridor for the future WSFL as part of its ''Freight & Ports Strategy'' in 2013. Corridor preservation for the WSFL is also considered a priority under the State Infrastructure Strategy. Constraints analysis and consultation took place between 2015 and 2017, with the line in operation "before 2030". The project is expected to cost in the order of $1 billion.

Corridor

While a precise alignment for stage 2 of the WSFL has yet to be selected, maps released by

Transport for NSW Transport for NSW, sometimes abbreviated to TfNSW, and pronounced as Transport for New South Wales, is an agency of the New South Wales Government established on 1 November 2011, and is the leading transport and roads agency in New South Wales, ...

show the line running south-east from St Marys in the vicinity of

Ropes Creek Ropes Creek, a watercourse that is part of the Hawkesbury-Nepean catchment, is located in Greater Western Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. Course and features Ropes Creek rises in the south-western suburbs of Sydney, near Devils Back Tu ...

, running east on the south side of the M4 Western Motorway, then south-east towards Eastern Creek. From here, the corridor crosses the

Westlink M7 The Westlink M7 or M7 Motorway, formerly Western Sydney Orbital, is a tolled urban motorway in Sydney and is a part of the Sydney Orbital Network. Owned by the NorthWestern Roads (NWR) Group, it connects three motorways: M5 South-West Motorwa ...

motorway at a point between

Prospect Reservoir The Prospect Reservoir is a heritage-listed potable water supply and storage reservoir (water), reservoir created by the Prospect Dam, across the Prospect Creek (New South Wales), Prospect Creek located in the Western Sydney suburb of Prospec ...

and the Horsley Drive, crosses the Old Main South railway near

Yennora Yennora is a suburb of Sydney in the state of New South Wales, Australia, 29 kilometres west of the Sydney central business district. The residential part of the suburb is primarily in the local government area of the City of Fairfield, alt ...

and joins the SSFL at Villawood.

Background

Over the course of the late 20th century, factories and other industrial land uses vacated much of the inner city, relocating to sites in Western Sydney. This created a significant freight task in moving cargo between

Sydney Airport Sydney Kingsford Smith Airport (colloquially Mascot Airport, Kingsford Smith Airport, or Sydney Airport; ; ) is an international airport in Sydney, Australia, located 8 km (5 mi) south of the Sydney central business district, in the ...

and Port Botany in the inner city and new industrial areas in the west. At the same time, the growth in patronage on the suburban rail system has limited the number of train "paths" available to freight trains accessing Port Botany from outside of Sydney, particularly during the morning and evening peak. The State's long-term objective is to separate freight and passenger trains on their own dedicated tracks within the Metropolitan Rail Area. The first major piece of this work, connecting the Main Southern railway in Sydney's south-west to the port, opened in 2012 as the SSFL. A second program of works, to progressively separate freight and passenger trains travelling to and from the Main Northern railway – the

Northern Sydney Freight Corridor The Northern Sydney Freight Corridor (NSFC) was a project to improve access between Sydney and Newcastle for freight trains. Frequent passenger services operate on the Main Northern line between Strathfield and Broadmeadow. These passenger serv ...

program – began in 2011. A third element, the Maldon–Dombarton rail link, would allow freight trains to bypass the

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 ...

between Sydney and Port Kembla. Western Sydney Freight Line corridor identification and draft strategic environmental assessment documents were prepared in 2018.Draft Strategic Environmental Assessment
Transport for NSW February 2018

References

{{Reflist Proposed railway lines in Australia Railway lines in Sydney Western Sydney