How exactly would you describe Sydney's rail network? When

Sydney's system is a mixed bag. The true city part is actually quite small (and correspondingly, the City Circle) compared to cities with proper subway systems

It is city centric, but much less so than Melbourne and Brisbane's systems. Sydney is a more bus-mixed system than the star topology seen in Melboune and Brisbane. The big trunk is the Main Suburban between Central and Parramatta. Nowadays, traffic is still slanted towards the city but much more is in the Parramatta direction due to growth

In essence, it points to the city as a feeder and it is quinessentially a suburban system. It extends 50-60 km in each direction from the city. What was chopped off when they broke up CityRail is also the Intercity network. It's a long distance commuter system people use just like the subruban, pointing towards the city
This is also where a lot of complaints come in about building a metro system to run the suburban distances. It's fucking stupid shit thought up by planners from desks who are foreign to the system and have never used it as suburban commuters

The best analogue to make would probably be a butchered Japanese city like Nagoya or Fukuoka. Just scale down the city, tear out the subway and drop in more comfortable trains (normalising Liner services)

File: Bradfield_Scheme_Sydney_CBD_Railways_alt.png (33KB, 583x663px) Image search: [Google]

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I see a network with many missed opportunities, and sometimes think about what it would've been like today if Bradfield's plan was actually completed.

>>1050991
Yeah I'd say it's comparable to an S-Bahn. But it's larger and runs at a higher frequency than most German systems.