slowly and at significant expense. Industrial action spurred by ethnic tensions delayed the works, as did an injunction taken out by residents of the exclusive suburb of Woollahra to prevent round-the-clock tunnelling works, spawning a chain of legal action not completed in the High Court of Australia until 1982, some three years after the project was completed. With the coming to power of the Wran government in May 1976 a Board of Review of the Legislative Assembly was set up to examine the merits and feasibility of the Eastern Suburbs Railway project. Then, all tunnelling works had been completed to Bondi Junction and much of the track was laid, but the stations themselves were mostly incomplete. The Board was asked primarily whether the project continue or be abandoned yet again. The Board made the following recommendations: The line be completed and opened to Bondi Junction The line be abandoned beyond Bondi Junction Stations be scaled back: the report suggested inter alia no shopping plaza be constructed at Bondi Junction as planned (Martin Place, being further advanced, should retain its shopping plaza), the number of escalators be reduced, platforms be tiled only four carriage lengths as only four carriage trains would be used at opening, and that the size, scale and finish of bus-rail interchanges at Bondi Junction and Edgecliff be reduced New work be commissioned to integrate the line to the existing Illawarra Line, including: constructing a second track from Central to Erskineville, underground platforms at Redfern Station and a turnback tunnel (for trains coming from the Illawarra Line) at Martin Place The recommendations were almost entirely accepted: the line would be truncated to Bondi Junction (but platforms would be tiled their full length). Further, due to residents' demands, costs and poor patronage expectations, Woollahra station would not be completed (there remains a vestigial station on site, with platform walls in place). Lastly, it was decided to build the Bondi Junction Bypass section of the Eastern Suburbs Freeway (a road otherwise unbuilt), now Syd Einfeld Drive. Opening The Eastern Suburbs line was finally opened on 23 June 1979 by then New South Wales premier Neville Wran around 50 years after it was first planned and 31 years after construction began - construction had taken place at a rate of approximately 250 metres per year on average. Only double-deck rolling stock was used on the line - the first line in