The state government has a huge program to build transport infrastructure works in Sydney and NSW. So why are so many of its most senior infrastructure builders leaving the building?
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In the past few months, there has been a mini-exodus of senior staff from Transport for NSW. Former secretary Dave Stewart quit for the top job in the Queensland public service just before the March election.
Since then three of Mr Stewart's deputies have left the agency, as well as large numbers of other senior public servants.
One of the more senior and recent departures is Cynthia Gillespie, also leaving for a plum job in Queensland.
But Ms Gillespie's job in NSW was one of the most critical and difficult in the transport bureaucracy - trying to organise the rail timetable to operate when the existing Epping to Chatswood Line is closed for seven months in 2018.
According to Mr Stewart's replacement as Secretary, Tim Reardon, the departures of senior staff reflect organisational changes needed to deliver the many projects announced in the past four years.
"In terms of the people in the prior roles, they've done a fantastic job," Mr Reardon said. Those who had left, he said, did so because "we've got a new structure that needs to deliver on the government's agenda".
Senior staff to have left include Chris Lock, the former head in charge of transport projects, as well as his deputy, Bevan Brown. On one estimate, more than half the senior construction staff who used to report to Mr Lock have recently departed.
Rachel Johnson, the former deputy director general in charge of freight, has also left. As has Anissa Levy, the deputy director for planning, and Jeff Goodling, who had been running the central Sydney light rail project.
In broad terms, Mr Reardon has shrunk the number of divisions in the transport agency from six to three. But he has also created multiple delivery agencies for specific projects or programs.
These include a Northern Beaches bus rapid transit delivery office, which remains without a head; a Pacific Highway delivery office; the light rail delivery office, for which a new chief, Andy Summers, was appointed a few weeks ago; a second Sydney airport roadworks program office; a "congestion management" delivery office, and delivery offices for the Sydney Metro, WestConnex and NorthConnex.
"The scale of activity, the challenge and what is undoubtedly for us as a portfolio a happy problem to have in terms of the scale of activity that's been placed before us meant we couldn't do the same thing," Mr Reardon said. "We had to change, we had to evolve and we had to get much clearer line of sight."
The scale of the departures has, however, triggered concerns among former and current staff about the experience that has left the department. And Ms Gillespie's old job - organising the new timetable - remains to be filled.
One well-placed source said it was only now dawning on parts of the agency how difficult it would be to construct a timetable without the Epping to Chatswood line, which will be closed for seven months before it emerges as part of the Sydney Metro NorthWest line in 2019.
Mr Reardon said: "I'm very confident about the 2018 timetable in terms of the planning, in terms of the resourcing ... in terms of how we've done the analysis to date, in terms of rolling stock, in terms of signalling, in terms of power supply, in terms of enabling infrastructure works that we may need to have put in place."
The three divisions that remain under Mr Reardon are freight, strategy and planning run by new recruit Clare Gardiner-Barnes, customer services under Tony Braxton-Smith, and infrastructure and services under Fergus Gammie.
