The entire metropolitan train network will be closed for the Adelaide Fringe opening weekend as the completion date for the maligned Gawler Line electrification project is delayed again amid growing costs.
The 42-kilometre passenger line between Adelaide and Gawler has not run for more than a year due to works to electrify the service, with a finish date originally planned for November last year now slated for April.
Transport Minister Corey Wingard today said the city's entire passenger network would shut down completely on February 19 and 20 while the new electric line is configured with the rest of the system.
Disruptions are expected to begin on February 18, the opening Friday night of Australia's largest arts festival, the Adelaide Fringe, and run until the following Monday.
Mr Wingard said it was "the weekend we have to do it", but substitute buses would be in place for every train line so the public transport service could continue.
Adelaide Fringe director Heather Croall said the government had today assured her that "there will be replacement bus services put on for that weekend".
Train delivery also delayed
A Budget and Finance Committee meeting this morning also heard there would be delays to the delivery of electric trains for the Gawler line.
The government has purchased 12 trains at a cost of $175 million, but the committee heard the supplier had identified a welding defect.
Department of Infrastructure chief executive Tony Braxton-Smith said it meant SA would only have three trains for the Gawler Line in April, with diesel trains to provide the rest of its passenger services until the order was progressively filled by March 2023.
Commuters have also told the ABC that diesel trains had been running on the Seaford electric line for the past two weeks.
The ABC has contacted Mr Wingard's office over the issue.
A beleaguered project
The electrification of the Gawler Line was announced by the former state Labor government in 2008 as a joint-funded project with the former federal Labor government.
But when the Coalition led by Tony Abbott won the 2013 federal election the funding was pulled and the SA government shelved the project.
It resurrected the project in early 2018 — ahead of the state election — in a stage-one announcement to build it to Salisbury.
But when the Liberals won the election, it resecured funding from the federal Coalition to build it all the way to Gawler.
Since then, the project has been dogged by delayed opening dates after first being slated for 2020, then 2021, and now for April 2022 — although Mr Wingard has refused to set an actual day.
Another cost blow-out
Mr Wingard said delays caused by COVID restrictions had led to a cost increase of $127 million.
"Incorporated in that is the substitute buses and the extended substitute bus contract we are running," he said.
It follows another cost blow-out of $100 million announced in December last year, which Mr Wingard blamed on a "messy contract" it inherited from Labor to what is now a $842 million project.
He also said Labor had not ordered any electric trains as part of its original contract, made "on the eve of the last election".
"It was headed to the courts … we fixed up that mess we were left."
A 'blow' to northerners
But opposition transport spokesperson Tom Koutsantonis said the minister was creating "spin" to mask his "incompetence" and costs had blown out by $227 million under his watch.
"I think it's getting to the point where it's looking absurd," he told ABC Radio Adelaide.
He said the "people of the north" had been without a train service for more than a year and Mr Wingard had to apologise.
"It's just another blow to commuters," Mr Koutsantonis said.
"I think the time for excuses is over and what we need now from the Minister is an apology to the people of the north and to just get on with it, and tell us when it's going to be done."
End's in sight
Mr Wingard pointed out that train projects had been delayed worldwide during the pandemic, including in Perth, Auckland, the UK, and US.
He said Adelaide was "not immune".
"We thank everyone for their patience, but this is going to be a sensational piece of infrastructure when the project's complete."
He said some trains would be running on the Gawler Line from February to test the signalling system and pedestrian crossings.
