Chinese takeway … an artist’s impression of Downer EDI’s Waratah train. Source: The Daily Telegraph

But instead, the first two Waratah trains used in Sydney are making an 18,000km round trip to China because the company that makes them said it was “more sensible and cost effective”.

The trains – which have been used for the past two years to test the $3.6 billion project – need to be fitted out to carry passengers.

They were to be sent from the Waratah facility at Auburn to Downer EDI’s manufacturing facility at Cardiff, near Newcastle, where the Chinese-built trains receive their final touches before hitting the rails.

But Downer EDI yesterday admitted it had decided to send both test trains back to Changchun Railway Vehicles Company (CRC) in China.

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The two eight-car trains don’t have seats, airconditioning or other fittings required to carry passengers, Downer’s Waratah project director Ross Spicer said yesterday while announcing the company’s half-year profit result.

“They were built very early in the stage of the design. We will return these to CRC for retro fit. We were previously going to rework these in Cardiff, but it is more cost-effective and more sensible to send them back to China CRC to re-work them and again we will be delivering them to RailCorp in 2013.”

The first Waratah test train came on a ship to Newcastle in 2009. The test vehicles were then moved to the Cardiff rail manufacturing facility and fitted with technical testing equipment, traction inverters and electrical auxiliary power supply. In 2010 they were moved to Sydney and run as test vehicles.

The company yesterday also said it had increased its forecast liquidated damages by $20 million to $170 million because of delays surrounding the delivery of the Waratah trains to Railcorp.

With costs escalating to $200,000 per month for each train not in service, the total projected liquidated damages for the project has blown out further with delays of 13 months behind the original timetable, it said.

The company yesterday said its profit in the six-month period to December 31, 2011, was $85 million, compared with a $103.8 million loss in the prior comparable period.

Earlier this week Downer EDI said that it had received completion approval from RailCorp for its seventh Waratah Train, having earlier in the month agreed on a bail-out deal with the state government in return for 100 per cent equity in the project.