The plan to stop commuters falling between platform gaps on ...

They were originally to be straightened for new driverless metro trains.

But a decision more than five years ago for eight heritage stations along a busy rail line in Sydney’s southwest to retain their curves has required a fix to avoid commuters falling in gaps between platforms and the new autonomous trains.

To solve the problem, 170 mechanical gap fillers will be fitted at eight stations along the converted metro rail line between Sydenham and Bankstown. The small hydraulic platforms will extend to the new train carriages before screen doors open, allowing commuters to safely step on and off.

Sydney Trains is also ramping up plans to fit rubber gap fillers at more than a dozen stations on the suburban rail network after about 450 people fell in gaps last year. The rubber gap fillers feel rigid if commuters step on them, but allow trains to brush up alongside them as they pull into platforms.

The need for the mechanical gap fillers for Metro Southwest illustrates the complexity of converting a 13-kilometre section of the near 130-year-old Bankstown line to driverless train standards.

Sydney Metro Southwest project director Alia Karaman said converting the line presented scores of challenges, citing the complex planning and engineering involved, and need to work around commuters, heritage stations and both passenger and freight trains.

“The scope is so varied from overhead wiring to building a brand new platform and station plaza at Bankstown,” she said.

The mechanical gap fillers will be installed during a 12-month shutdown of the Bankstown line, which is due to start as early as July.

The closure will follow the opening of the main section of the $21.6 billion Metro City and Southwest line from Chatswood to Sydenham via the CBD in the middle of the year.

Karaman said every station on the line to be converted to handle driverless trains had a different curvature. “It is about accessibility at the end of the day,” she said of the mechanical gap fillers.

Dulwich Hill station has the widest gap between train and platform of about 31 centimetres.

The original plan to straighten the platforms at stations along the stretch of the Bankstown line to be converted to metro train standards was ditched in 2018 because of the cost, disruption to heritage stations and the extra time needed to shut the existing rail line to complete construction.

The mechanical gap fillers that will be fitted to the station platforms will be shipped to Sydney from the Korean factories of Hyundai Movex, which has a $49 million contract to design, supply and test both them and platform screen doors for the Bankstown line.

The platform equipment, which is used on Seoul’s metro rail network, will be installed at Marrickville, Dulwich Hill, Hurlstone Park, Canterbury, Campsie, Belmore, Lakemba and Punchbowl stations.

Wiley Park station will not require them because its platforms are straight, while work is underway on two new linear platforms at Bankstown station.

After first installing rubber gap fillers at Circular Quay station in 2021, Sydney Trains is now spending $9 million to fit them at another 13 stations including Central, Epping, Lidcombe, Strathfield, Blacktown, Hurstville and Sydenham.

Transport Minister Jo Haylen said not a single fall through gaps had been recorded on platforms which had rubber fillers installed over the lastthree years. “Unfortunately, there’s no one-size-fits-all approach to reducing falls on our railway, but gap-filler is certainly proving useful,” she said.

Rubber gap fillers have already been attached to a number of platforms at Redfern, Town Hall, Wynyard, Bondi Junction, Chatswood and Wolli Creek stations.

An average of five people fall through the gap at Sydney’s train stations each week. Children and elderly passengers are most likely to fall and be injured.

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