NSW government misses its own light rail repair deadline

The NSW government has failed to meet their own deadline of fixing the Inner West light rail by October.

Former transport minister Rob Stokes said in November 2021 that the cracked light rail fleet would be back up and running by this year's October long weekend. But as of Monday's public holiday, they were still being repaired.

The repairs shut down the full L1 Dulwich Hill line services for a few months, with commuters having to rely on replacement buses.

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Services resumed in February when trams designed for the city's George Street line subbed in while the 12 Spanish-built Urbos trams were being fixed.

Executive director at Transport for NSW Mark Hutchings said five trams have now been fully repaired and were running, but admitted the rest were still in testing.

"We've got them rolling through some enhancement maintenance works, we've got some training for the drivers... by the end of November we'll be back at pre-repair timetables."

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Labor's shadow treasurer, Daniel Mookhey, said the government was always quick to promise a fix, but they never actually delivered.

"We could have made them here and we could have had a much more reliable supply chain that's capable of repairing the trams when something went wrong with them," he said.