Sydney commuters are being advised to avoid train travel as the protracted dispute between rail unions and the government drags on, and industrial action dramatically reduces services.

Most timetables were reduced to a half-hour frequency on Wednesday, while services were suspended on the T5 Cumberland and T7 Olympic Park lines.

Compounding the disruption, bus drivers were off the job in Sydney’s inner-west as part of a separate dispute with Transit Systems, the private company contracted to run services in the area.

Services in Region 6, which includes the inner-west, some of the CBD, Olympic Park, Strathfield and Rockdale, were affected.

Meanwhile, rail workers are refusing to operate foreign-built trains – which make up about 70 per cent of the fleet – as part of a month of industrial action that has also included area-based strikes.

Transport Minister David Elliott will meet rail union bosses on Wednesday in another attempt to resolve the protracted dispute over a new enterprise agreement.

The Rail, Tram and Bus Union is also demanding changes to a fleet of mothballed Korean-built intercity trains it says are not safe to operate in NSW.

NSW secretary Alex Claassens said the union was “working in good faith with Transport [for NSW] to finally put an end to these negotiations which have been about putting commuter safety front and centre”.

Opposition Leader Chris Minns said he did not support the industrial action and would “do anything to end these strikes”.

“We’d never knowingly put out millions of people from getting to and from work for political gain,” he told Sydney radio 2GB on Wednesday.

He said he had tried unsuccessfully to contact Mr Claassens.

“He’s clearly in no doubt about our position,” he said.

“I don’t think protracted disputes with unions is a great way to run the state.”

On Sunday, the NSW government tried to avert Wednesday’s action when it offered to drop its requirement to make a deed for alterations to the trains dependent on a new enterprise agreement.

The union said on Monday it had not received the deed and could not make decisions on behalf of other unions involved in the enterprise agreement negotiations.

It offered to suspend industrial action until the end of September – or until an enterprise agreement is reached – if the government executed a deed for the train changes and agreed to other demands, including increased progression and wages for workers.

-AAP

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