Last Waratah train has been delivered to Sydney Trains, so where are the plans for more new trains?

So a couple of weeks ago, A80 or the last Waratah train was delivered to Sydney Trains and is now undergoing the process acceptance trials for it to begin revenue service later on in the year and this got us wondering, where are the plans for more new and more wheelchair friendly accessible trains?

The short and correct answer would be that the current incumbent transport Minister, Gladys Berejiklian, does have any!

This got ask intrigued here at TfANSW because there is still going to be about 20-30 Silver sets (also known as S sets) that are not air conditioned nor very wheelchair accessible still around in revenue service simply to help provide additional capacity for the SWRL (South-West Rail Link) when it opens either sometime later this year or early next year.

What is even bluntly stupid on the Ministers behalf is that she could have ordered more Waratah train sets to fill this gap and finally get rid of the last of those ugly trains which have become more frequent to breakdowns along with the lack of audible announcements because of the electrical cables between the carriages are so worn or dirty they can't be fixed nor replaced because the greater costs.

So why is it that Gladys Berejiklian didn't order more of the trains from reliance rail (builders, financial and maintenance company of the Waratah train)?

There could be a number so reasons, namely because the current government did have to save the project and inject money to become the sole shareholder of reliance rail, but it still begs to ask, why not build more of Waratah trains because of this reason?

Is the government therefore also looking at getting single decked train sets because their argument is they can transport more passengers over double decked train sets (which Sydney trains currently have as their whole entire fleet) which has been proven is absolutely false, or could it be that they just don't have a plan because they are looking to fully privatise Sydney trains (which has been a rumor floating around for a while now)?

We have reached out to Transport for NSW and the Ministers office for comment but are yet to here anything from either party.

Do you think the Transport Minister should have ordered more Waratah trains or should they be looking for other types of train sets to replace the older S sets?