WORK is due to start next month on retrofitting CityRail trains with internal emergency door release mechanisms, which passengers can activate.
The changes were recommended by the inquiry into the Waterfall rail disaster, the 10th anniversary of which occurred on January 31.
RailCorp was to have completed the project this year, but "unfortunately" work had twice been delayed, the independent transport safety regulator said in a report, released in December.
The report said work on the first trains was due to start in March, and be completed by the end of 2015.
Doors on all new trains joining the network would also have the mechanism.
Justice Peter McInerney, who conducted the Waterfall inquiry, was highly critical of RailCorp's "containment" policy, which led to passengers being unable to escape the derailed train.
The regulator's report said in 2006 that RailCorp abandoned the policy and agreed to internal door release mechanisms, although later modified this to give train crews an override facility in unsafe circumstances.
RailCorp had submitted emergency exit through windows was too dangerous, and this argument was accepted.
A further report by the regulator last month said that only two of the inquiry's 177 recommendations remained "open".
They included the introduction of an automatic train protection system, allowing the brakes of a train to be applied from a remote location if it was going too fast.
It was due to be implemented progressively between 2014 and 2021.
The report said the second outstanding matter was the introduction of a new digital radio system, to enable train crews and control rooms to communicate on the same system.
It was due to be in operation by April 2015.
In all, 161 recommendations had been fully implemented, eight were subject to implementation, one was no longer applicable and five had been rejected by the government.
TRAGEDY RECALLED
NSW Fire & Rescue officers, Paul Shapter, Richard Rowlands and Glenn Caward (pictured left to right) still work at Hurstville station, from where they responded to the disaster 10 years ago.
Station Office Shapter recalled the ‘‘quite surreal’’ atmosphere at the crash site, where seven people died and dozens were injured.
‘‘It wasn’t a scene of panic, as you might imagine,’’ he said.
‘‘We all had a job to do and we did it.
‘‘Passengers were in a lot of pain but you have to respect the way they let us do our jobs.
‘‘The co-ordination between the fire brigade, ambulance and police was tremendous.’’
Mr Shapter said as bad as the accident was, it could have been worse.
‘‘It was an early morning service so there weren’t too many people in the first carriage which suffered the worst damage,’’ he said.
‘‘If it had been later in the morning or if it had derailed into the path of an oncoming train, who knows how much worse it would have been.’’
