Sydney and regional city commuters are again facing disruptions to train services, despite the NSW government agreeing to the rail union's major demands on Wednesday.
Trains are running to a reduced-frequency timetable, with peak hour services reduced from every few minutes to up to 15 minutes.
Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland told ABC Sydney Breakfast customers need to plan ahead.
What is causing the disruption?
Sydney Trains is blaming ongoing industrial action for the inconvenience, but the Rail, Tram and Bus Union (RTBU) accused the operator of deliberately slowing down trains.
Drivers went ahead with planned action on Thursday, including a ban on travelling on trains while on duty.
That meant they needed to take taxis to move around the network, which Sydney Trains said took more time.
It followed industrial action earlier this week after a breakdown in talks about the union's concerns about safety with a new fleet of inner-city trains.
On Tuesday, trains were running slower than 60 kilometres an hour.
What has the government already agreed?
Today's action went ahead despite the government making a $264 million offer to fix the New Inner-City Fleet at the centre of the dispute.
The union has long called for the new trains, which will travel from Sydney to Lithgow, Kiama, and the Central Coast, to be modified to allow guards to properly monitor platforms and check that gaps were clear.
The government has maintained they were safe, but on Wednesday the Transport Minister David Elliot backed down and agreed to make modifications to put an end to the ongoing chaos caused to commuters.
"Am I happy about spending millions of dollars to modify what the safety regulator has said are perfectly good trains? Absolutely not," Mr Elliot said on Wednesday.
The government has also agreed to negotiate on pay and allowances.
So why are there still disruptions?
RTBU NSW secretary Alex Claassens said the documents outlining the government's latest offer had not been provided until late on Wednesday night.
"We've got to work through that, we've got to see to make sure that everything's covered off in the letter," Mr Claassens said.
Sydney Trains and the union were meeting today to discuss the offer.
Mr Claassens was doubtful of resolving the long-running dispute in time to call off further industrial action planned for Friday.
"We don't actually know what's in [the offer] yet. So we're going to sit there today and go through it line by line."
Mr Claassens said they had been arguing to make the trains safer for six years.
If an agreement is not finalised today, drivers will refuse to drive foreign-made trains which is expected to result in the cancellation of up to half the timetabled services.
Sydney Trains was still hopeful of avoiding that situation.
"We're sitting down with the unions … to go through [it] line by line and hopefully put these disruptions to an end," Mr Longland said.
"We think it's a fair offer and we're keen to work with unions to get through the detail."
Mr Elliot said on Wednesday he expected the union to "act in good faith" and train services to run as normal on Friday.
