State Rail Authority of New South Wales

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The State Rail Authority was the government authority responsible for the operation and maintenance of railways in the Australian state of New South Wales between 1980 and 2003.

[edit] History

The State Rail Authority (SRA) was established in 1980 after the separation of the Public Transport Commission into the SRA, responsible for trains, and the Urban Transport Authority (UTA), responsible for buses and ferries. In 1988, with the election of the Greiner State Government, the SRA was divided into business units- CityRail, responsible for urban railways; CountryLink, responsible for country passenger services; FreightRail, responsible for freight services; and Rail Estate, responsible for rail property. Upon formation of the SRA, a red, orange and white livery was applied to all trains, known colloquailly as the 'candy' livery. A red and orange 'L7' logo was adopted. Upon the formation of the business units in 1988, CityRail adopted a black and yellow 'L7' logo (later to become bue and yellow), and Countylink adopted its present blue and green 'Mountains' logo and livery.

In 1996, the SRA was reorganised with freight services being corporatised into the 'Freight Rail Corporation' (FreightCorp) in preparation for eventual privitisation. The 'Railway Services Authority' (RSA) was established with responsibility for track maintenance and construction activities; and the 'Rail Access Corporation' (RAC) was established with responsibility for managing the rail network and administering access by public and private operators^[1]

Upon the privitisation and sale of FreightCorp, the SRA was broken into the 'Rail Infrastructure Corporation', responsible for maintenance of the railways, and the residual functions of the SRA, which operated passenger rail services and maintained the passenger stations. In 2004, after much criticism and public perceptions of blame shifting between units for operational failings, the metropolitan sections of the RIC and the passenger train operations (the residual SRA) were merged to form the Rail Corporation New South Wales , with RailCorp assuming maintenance obligations in the urban areas and urban and country train operation, with the Australian Rail Track Corporation responsible for country lines.