New TrainLink boss Rob Mason spent his first day in the job on Monday checking out his empire first-hand.
Mr Mason, who heads up the regional arm of the old RailCorp (with a separate organisation looking after the city network), had a “very comfortable ride” from the city to freshly renovated Springwood station.
He caught one of the newly refurbished trains which has had a complete makeover — new carpet, seats, toilets, lighting and paint job in a shade of purple called “bush plum”. TrainLink plans to refurbish all 200 of the V Set carriages used on the Blue Mountains, Newcastle and Central Coast lines.
Mr Mason said he had heard customers’ concerns and his first priority would be to improve on-time running of trains.
Asked about the wishes of Upper Mountains residents west of Katoomba for more services in the middle of the day, Mr Mason said the timetable was still being finalised and he could not commit to extra trains “but we are listening to feedback”.
