Like plenty of anxious parents, I spent the summer holidays prepping my daughter for her public transport commute to her new high school several suburbs from home. Gently, I reminded her more than once that we could not drive her in the painfully slow morning peak hour. One practice run (on two modes of transport), and she was happy to go solo. I could see the pride in her 12-year-old eyes.

It lasted a week. On Friday, we were in the car, crawling through that peak-hour traffic as Sydney’s train network ground to a halt. On a typical Sydney day about 800,000 people catch a train. That dropped to 300,000 last Friday. Many opted to work from home, but thousands more had to find another way to work or school. Plenty of them were on the roads.

Railroaded? Commuters amid the train disrupttion, and RTBU NSW secretary Toby Warnes.Credit: Fairfax Media

Hundreds of train drivers called in sick last Friday, the morning after negotiations broke down again between the combined rail unions and the NSW Labor government. There have been many sticking points, but the latest was a $4500 payment to rail workers struck under the former Coalition government. The Minns government is refusing to continue that payment, insisting it was a “one-off”.

There have been other sticking points during the protracted dispute: the union’s demand for 50¢ fares, 24-hour train services and fare-free days, all designed to win over exhausted commuters. But for........

© The Sydney Morning Herald