Middle management bureaucracies will be slashed in the NSW railway service to make way for a re-organised specialist system.

The NSW Government will launch the Fixing the Trains initiative, which will break up RailCorp to create two specialist bodies to accommodate the different needs of regional and intercity commuters.

These two services will be Sydney Trains and NSW Trains, the former for more frequent city-based trains, and the latter for regional and country customers who travel longer.

According to the NSW Government, this will mean the slashing of ‘top heavy rail bureaucracy’.

To simplify processes and reduce bureaucracy, up to 750 voluntary redundancies will be offered to RailCorp middle management, mostly in the head office.

The NSW Government said that no frontline staff will be affected.

Minister for Transport, Gladys Berejiklian said these changes will align rail services to customers’ needs and make it easier for rail employees to do their job.

“This is all about making customers the focus of the railways, not the bureaucracy,” Ms Berejiklian said.

Ms Berejiklian said things will continue to get worse unless “drastic action” is taken.

“RailCorp is currently financially unsustainable; it costs $10 million a day to run, with costs rising three times as fast as the number of passenger journeys,” Ms Berejiklian said.

In addition to the two new services, RailCorp’s cleaning staff will be transferred to a specialist subsidiary unit to attack graffiti and rubbish on trains stations.

Commercial cleaning benchmarks will be introduced along with specialist management and support systems.

According to the NSW Government, organisations will be established progressively over the next 12-18 months.

RailCorp in its current form will cease to operate train services once these organisations are fully established.

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