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The Epping to Chatswood line (originally known as the Parramatta Rail Link) is a railway line under construction in the Northern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. It was originally intended to run from Parramatta to Chatswood, via Epping. It is mostly underground, with new subway stations being constructed at Delhi Road, Macquarie Park, Macquarie University and new subway platforms at Epping (in addition to the three existing above ground platforms).
Construction of the 13 km Epping-to-Chatswood section commenced in November 2002, and is expected to be completed by 2008.
It is mainly being constructed by boring, with a section underneath the Lane Cove River being constructed by the cut and cover method (next to where Delhi Road crosses the River.) Originally, there was to be a bridge over the Lane Cove River, instead of a tunnel beneath it, but the government adopted the tunnel option due to community and environmentalist pressure. This required the elimination of the planned station at the University of Technology, Sydney, Kuring-gai Campus; the required increased depth of the tunnel to go under the river made a station at that point impractical, due to the required depth of the escalator shafts.
The railway line was originally intended to continue from Epping to Parramatta, partially travelling along the existing Carlingford surface line (which would be widened from single-track to dual-track). However, in August 2003 the NSW Transport Minister, Michael Costa, announced that the Epping-Parramatta section would be postponed indefinitely.
A major benefit of the Epping-Chatswood line is, by diverting four trains per an hour from Hornsby or the Central Coast on the main Northern Line at Epping to the North Shore Line at Chatswood, the load on the Main Western Line between Strathfield and Central is lessened, and the North Shore Line is better utilised.
The abandoning of the Parramatta-Epping section was justified on the grounds that the expected daily patronage of 15,000 passenger trips did not justify the project's $1.2 billion cost. The government feared that the line would be under-utilised, much as the Airport Link has been.
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