NSW train commuters are being affected by targeted strikes, with some services cancelled as long running industrial action continues.
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The Rail, Tram and Bus Union is blaming the government for suspending services, saying it is not necessary.
Sydney Trains chief executive Matt Longland says Wednesday's strike will affect about about 70,000 commuters who regularly travel on Sydney's T4 Eastern line and the Illawarra and South Coast lines.
Services operated normally until about 9am, when trains were returned to stabling yards and depots before the action began at 10am.
The timetable is expected to return to normal by Wednesday evening.
The union is calling on the government to allow trains to run, blaming Transport for NSW for suspending services.
Secretary Alex Claassens says it's an exaggerated reaction and has rubbished claims the services could not continue.
"The industrial action ... has been carefully designed to ensure commuter services can still run and impacts only around 10 per cent of all available train crew," Mr Claassens said.
"The NSW government is choosing not to run the services."
He said the action was meant to cause headaches for management and government rather than commuters.
The union wants changes to a fleet of intercity trains as well as a new enterprise bargaining agreement.
The new trains, which it says are not safe, have been sitting in storage since 2019 and the previous enterprise agreement expired over a year ago.
Transport Minister David Elliot was ill on Tuesday but, according to upper house Liberal Scott Farlow, still prepared to meet with the union.
"He is quite happy for Alex Claassens to come over to his place ... to meet in his study and thrash this out," Mr Farlow told parliament.
Labor's Mark Buttigieg said the government was trying to conjoin the changes to the trains with the negotiations for a new enterprise agreement and make the signing of one contingent on the other.
"It is shameful for the government to come here and try to twist and distort what is really going on," he said.
Employee Relations Minister Damien Tudehope said the strike was "specifically designed to make sure the commuters of this state are used as pawns in industrial activity".
He accused Mr Claassens of making "absurd and disingenuous claims".
"It is typical of the dishonest campaign that has been conducted by him and the union," he said.
In February, the government suspended trains in response to union action and claimed it was the result of a strike, which the RTBU said it was not taking.
The decision to suspend trains was made while Mr Elliott was asleep and he said he found out about it in a newspaper when he woke.
Three more area-based strikes are planned before the end of the month and workers will also leave station gates open and refuse to operate foreign-built trains on some days.
The union is also banning work associated with the Sydney Metro transit project until September 10.
Australian Associated Press
