railway lines. However no provision was made for an upgraded turnback facility. Opening The Eastern Suburbs Railway was opened on 23 June 1979 by the Premier, Neville Wran. Rebuilding the Bus Interchange The bus interchange facility opened in 1979 was basic. The location of the station meant the land and airspace on which it was located was highly valuable. This in turn led to various proposal throughout the 1990s to sell the airspace and redevelop the interchange. In 1998, Woollahra Council, then controlling the site of the bus interchange, finalised an agreement to sell the airspace above the site to Meriton who commenced construction of a new bus interchange together with two residential apartment towers and a small shopping centre in April 1999. The new interchange was temporarily opened in September 2000 for the Sydney Olympics but subsequently closed for further work. The new bus interchange, two apartment towers and the shopping centre opened in July 2001. The shopping centre known as Tiffany Plaza (renamed to Meriton Retail Precinct Bondi Junction in 2018) featured a McDonald's outlet, a gym, a child care centre and seven other retailers. Reconstruction of the bus terminal altered the locations of commuter access to the station concourse. As such, alterations were required to the station concourse. The resulting renovation of Bondi Junction station primarily involved upgrading station staff facilities, the installation of toilets and the general updating of the station, hitherto a time capsule to the 1970s. The renovation was conducted coincidentally with the Easy Access upgrade to the station and the replacement of the original incandescent lamp platform indicators with plasma display indicators. Clearways Project upgrade Constructed as a part of the Rail Clearways Program, a second turnback facility was built. The major work consisted of the construction of a new crossover tunnel on the city side of the station. This created an X shaped or diamond junction allowing terminating trains to arrive at either platform. The changes allowed the full line capacity of 20 trains per hour to be turned at Bondi Junction, the prior limit being 14. In addition, extra stabling facilities were provided by utilitising unused sections of tunnels beyond the station. These tunnels were constructed on anticipation of continued tunnelling towards Kingsford. They have had track laid and overhead wire installed for a length of two eight-car trains in each tunnel. This gives a total stabling capacity of five eight-car