One of the reasons Sydney’s trains will stop this weekend is due to something not very controversial in other major cities around the world.

The NSW Rail Union has called on the state government to operate 24-hour train services in Sydney, Friday to Sunday, to avoid a work stoppage.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said it was impossible for the Government to continue operating overnight train services for maintenance reasons.

“We cannot jeopardize the maintenance of the rail system and the services that people actually need to get to work in the morning and get home.”

Experts say restoring 24-hour rail service to Sydney would be costly and require changes to operating and maintenance schedules.

Sydney’s night trains ended 35 years ago

Sydney had a 24-hour rail network until 1989, when the Greiner Liberal government ended night train services.

Geoffrey Clifton, a senior lecturer in transport management at the University of Sydney, said night train services had stopped because security costs were too high and maintenance was too difficult to undertake.

“Security costs were too high, you had to have security guards on every train and every platform,” Dr Clifton said.

“By running the services overnight, they were not able to perform maintenance overnight and therefore had to schedule more maintenance at other times of the day.”

The trains were replaced by a NightRide night bus service from midnight to 4:30 a.m., which still operates today.

Dr Clifton said Transport for NSW used the night to maintain its fleet of trains, tracks and stations.

“Currently we don’t run 24-hour train services because the night timetable is used to… do all these kinds of tasks that you can’t do when there are trains running on the network.” , he declared.

He said current night bus replacement services had been operating “very successfully” for 35 years.

Other global cities have night trains

In 2016, Melbourne introduced 24-hour weekend rail services, which received strong support from tourists, partygoers and shift workers.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said night services ran every hour and provided reassurance to people who stayed out late.

Mr Bowen said services were operating on all rail lines except the smaller Stony Point line in Melbourne’s southeast.

“(The trains) took over from an all-night bus service previously offered since the 1990s,” Mr Bowen said.

“The problem with the buses was that they took very different routes to the day trains, so people didn’t really know the routes.

London Underground has a NightTube service which operates on Friday and Saturday evenings on limited routes.

Transport for London said the night service reduced journey times for some Londoners by an average of 20 minutes, and in some cases by more than an hour.

New York offers limited late-night service, from midnight to 6 a.m.

Mr Bowen said Australian cities should consider opening night train services like Melbourne has done.

“I think Australian cities are increasingly operating 24 hours a day. The idea that everyone is home at midnight is no longer true,” he said.

“There are a lot of people after midnight, not only on weekends but also on other days of the week.”

“You just can’t flip a switch”

According to Dr Clifton, converting Sydney’s current train timetable to include night services would not be easy.

He said Sydney’s 150-year-old train network required constant maintenance because some of the technology had been in use since the 1800s.

Dr Clifton said a night train service would require more staff, security, money and a revamped timetable.

“It takes a lot of work to recalculate all the maintenance requirements and many of these maintenance events would have been planned months in advance.”

Dr Clifton said the introduction of night services would require Sydney Trains to rewrite the entire train timetable and take into account additional costs.

“The main issue will be how much it costs versus what the benefits will be, and so it will be about understanding how many people would be likely to use the service,” he said.

“They will need to know more about the maintenance impacts of running a 24-hour service, because…instead of having seven nights a week to do maintenance, there will be five nights a week.”

Nonetheless, Dr Clifton said the option of reintroducing weekend night services was worth exploring.

He said night services could revitalize the city’s nightlife, make it easier for essential workers to travel late at night and create a “24-hour economy”.

“Night train services, especially at weekends, will definitely have benefits or make it easier and safer for people to get home after a night out,” he said.

“They will have more confidence in their ability to get around town late at night, and expedite their return home late at night.”