Release ‘secret’ Blue Mountains rail line documents: Labor MP Trish Doyle

Blue Mountains MP Trish Doyle has called on the NSW Government to release suppressed documents about future plans for the rail service to Lithgow when the new intercity fleet is introduced on the Blue Mountains line in 2021.

Ms Doyle lodged a freedom of information request with Transport for NSW requesting any government documentation which considered the cutbacks of electric passenger services between Lithgow as a consequence of modifications needed for the new train carriages to fit through the narrow Ten Tunnels Deviation between Bell and Lithgow. 

While the government’s response to the FOI request acknowledged the document exists, they have refused to release it citing cabinet-in-confidence protections and an “overriding public interest against disclosure”. Ms Doyle, who has been campaigning for the full details and costs of the new intercity fleet to be made public since November 2016, along with Labor’s transport spokeswoman Jodi McKay, slammed the government’s refusal to release the documents.

Read the full story in the Blue Mountains Gazette here.