Here is a question worth sitting with: when a government spends more than $2 billion of public money on a fleet of trains that were promised in 2023 and still have not carried a single paying passenger, at what point does "complex project delivery" become a failure of basic institutional accountability?
That is the uncomfortable territory surrounding NSW's Regional Rail Fleet, a programme of 29 new long-distance trains built by Spanish manufacturer Transport for NSW in partnership with the Momentum Trains consortium. The contract was awarded in February 2019, and the new designs were unveiled in 2020, with rollout expected by 2023. As of early 2026, the trains are still being tested on the NSW network, with no confirmed entry-to-service date in sight.
Since February 2025, the first train has been undergoing testing on the NSW rail network, as part of a programme replacing the current regional fleet with 29 new trains. Two trains from the new fleet are currently undergoing dynamic testing, covering brake systems, signal compatibility, and technology systems including door operations and lights. The testing process is, by all accounts, thorough: Transport for NSW describes it as extensive and multi-phased, involving complexities such as accessing a busy rail network and completing various safety and performance verifications.
The trains themselves represent a genuine leap forward for regional travellers. The fleet of 117 carriages will feature aeroplane-style overhead luggage storage, charging ports, accessible toilets on every train, digital information screens, CCTV, and a modern buffet car. They will also be the first in Australia to use bi-mode technology, enabling the train to run on diesel engines or draw electric power from overhead wires on electrified sections of the network, reducing carbon emissions against the current fleet. The new trains will serve routes between Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne and Brisbane.
A new purpose-built maintenance facility, the Mindyarra Maintenance Centre, has been constructed in Dubbo, where it is now operated by UGL, providing regional employment and skills opportunities. That is a genuine benefit, and one the government has rightly promoted. But it does not answer for the budget trajectory.
The Auditor-General found the capital cost of the new fleet has risen by an estimated 53 per cent, from $1.26 billion to $2.3 billion. Transport for NSW has come under scrutiny from the NSW Auditor-General over rising costs and significant delays in the procurement of the Regional Rail Fleet. By October 2025, the public-private partnership contract had been dissolved by the NSW government, citing the need to resolve commercial challenges and avoid further project delays. Following that dissolution, the new structure is expected to save NSW taxpayers an estimated $400 million over the project's lifetime, though sceptics might reasonably ask why a structure that requires dissolving to generate savings was signed in the first place.
The counter-argument deserves serious consideration. Rail procurement at this scale is genuinely difficult, and NSW is hardly alone in struggling with it. Bespoke customisations, union negotiations, safety accreditation requirements and the complexity of testing on a live network all add time and cost. The Auditor-General found that Transport for NSW did not engage effectively with drivers and onboard staff during planning, which contributed to difficulties managing risks such as industrial action triggered by the driver-only operation model. That is less a defence of the blowout than a diagnosis of how it happened, and it points to systemic lessons that go beyond any single government's tenure.
The new trains will replace the ageing XPT fleet, dating from around 1982, alongside the Xplorer and Endeavour fleets. Regional passengers have waited a long time for this upgrade. The urgency is real, and patronage on regional trains surged in 2023, reversing pandemic-era losses, with a particular increase in ridership on Sydney-Melbourne services. Demand is growing precisely as the existing fleet ages further.
Strip away the talking points and what remains is this: a project commissioned under one government, delayed across multiple administrations, and now landing in the lap of the Minns government to resolve. The NSW Auditor-General has been clear about the structural failures in how the state manages major rail procurement, and those failures belong to the system as much as to any individual minister.
The fundamental question is not whether these trains will eventually be good for regional NSW, because they almost certainly will be. The question is whether the cost overruns, the procurement missteps, and the absence of a firm service date represent acceptable practice for a state spending tens of billions on transport infrastructure. Reasonable people can weigh those trade-offs differently. What they should not do is let the genuine quality of the end product excuse the process failures that got here. Transport for NSW has said a timeline for the fleet's entry into service will be confirmed once the trains have progressed through testing and relevant verifications on the NSW and Australian rail networks. For the regional communities still riding 40-year-old rolling stock, that confirmation cannot come soon enough.