Commuters are in line for better service but it's years away, writes Jacob Saulwick.

If you could grasp achievement through hyperbole, Gladys Berejiklian would have her hands full. This week the state's Transport Minister stood in Central Station's Bradfield Room, named after the engineer who ripped up Sydney's 1920s streetscape to carve train lines underneath and spent two decades overseeing the design and construction of the Harbour Bridge, to proclaim the ''biggest shake-up to the state's railways in a generation''.

Berejiklian's big reforms were threefold. She would disband RailCorp and set up two new bodies, NSW Trains to run country and regional services and Sydney Trains to run them in the city. There would be a new division to take charge of cleaning. And 750 middle managers out of 4000 would be offered voluntary redundancy, although here her hands are tied until at least 2014 when an enterprise bargaining agreement expires.

''This is about fixing the trains,'' she said, over and again during a 30-minute press conference.

Director of Public Transport Hector McKenzie wrote to Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder on February 10 and said there were 31 suspected suicides on Metro and V/Line rails every year.

He highlighted the number of deaths was not decreasing under the current "vague" reporting policy and discussed openly reporting suspected suicides.

A STATE Government plan for an East-West road link through the inner north has been dealt two blows, with the project failing to win Federal Budget money and Melbourne City Council to oppose any plan that threatens parkland.

The council approved its transport strategy last week, with an amendment stating it would oppose the use of its parkland for road works.

VANDALS have struck at the historic Clunes Railway Station, tearing a sign off the platform wall and smashing glass and slate from the roof. Police were called to the station just before 8pm last night after a concerned resident called emergency services. Police said they were yet to make any arrests, but suspected that a group of youths had caused the damage.

Mark Smith travels the length of Vietnam on the Reunification Railway, from Hanoi to Ho Chi Minh City.

It's 6.59pm at Hanoi Railway Station, the bustle of boarding on Platform 1 is complete and there is an air of expectation among passengers. An electric bell rings, the locomotive hoots and a uniformed attendant looks along the length of the train, holding a lantern aloft in the warm night.

From the station loudspeakers comes a last urgent call in staccato Vietnamese as attendants step smartly into the train, removing the numbers hung outside the carriage doors. One long blast and one short toot on the horn, a muted hiss from the brakes and SE1 glides gently into the night on its 33-hour, 1726-kilometre journey to Ho Chi Minh City/Saigon.