The NSW government's long-running battle with the state's train drivers has resulted in a new offer of a 15 per cent pay bump across four years but hasn't stopped workers from picking up strike action where they left it in December.
Several key services were cancelled or delayed across Sydney on Wednesday morning, primarily on the T1 North Shore and Western line, T4 Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra line and T8 Airport and South lines.
One daily return Bathurst Bullet service will also be cancelled and replaced by buses between Lithgow and Bathurst.
The government is staring down the barrel of 10 new work bans across the network, including an agreement to slow trains down to no more than 25 km/h.
On Tuesday, the government put to the union its new wage offer, which remains significantly below the four annual wage increases of eight percent that the workers have been asking for.
While union officials indicated they were unimpressed with the proposal, they said disruption would be limited throughout the week while they mulled it over.
"The current wages offer ... does seem a little light-on," Rail, Tram and Bus Union state secretary Toby Warnes told ABC Radio.
"We're a little bit perturbed by the fact that the government only managed to find one per cent in savings from it and that those one per cent only came from job losses.
"So that's obviously something we're not extremely happy about. I don't think 13 per cent over four years is going to cut it."
The government had previously refused to budge from its initial, public sector-wide pay offer, but it said a merger between NSW's two rail bodies and "productivity gains" - which the union tipped to include 100 job cuts - allowed for the slight bump.
Sydney Trains chief Matt Longland said he respected the rights of workers to take action but said those not completing full tasks from Wednesday onwards would be docked pay.
"For staff that are coming to work, we expect them to undertake their normal duties, or they won't be coming to work, and they won't be paid," he said.
Sydney Trains has set a Thursday deadline for the union to provide an in-principle response to the offer.
With AAP.
