Sydneysiders call it 'The Coathanger'. After 75 years the Sydney Harbour Bridge - a towering steel arch linking the central business district to the northern suburbs - has won a special place in the hearts of commuters.
But there's no point in having a bridge if you can't get across it, as happened this month when a train broke down at its north end. Sydney's public transport system was brought to a grinding halt and thousands of workers were forced to trudge home in the cold.
The fiasco was the result of shoddy maintenance: workers at the depot forgot to replace two small bolts on an inspection hatch, which lifted into the overhead wiring.
Travellers said the response from CityRail, the government-owned rail agency, was inadequate, slow and unco-ordinated. It took staff three hours to rescue one wheelchair-bound man using a forklift truck.
In the face of mounting public anger, RailCorp chief executive Vince Graham blamed his staff and what he called 'a lack of maintenance culture' within the organisation - an accusation rail unions strongly rejected. RailCorp is the government agency responsible for Sydney's rail services.
Sydney's commuters are becoming used to such disruptions. In March, 3,000 people were trapped inside trains for several hours on the Harbour Bridge.
In a city of gleaming office blocks, sparkling marina developments and designer boutiques, trains are anachronistic: poorly maintained, dirty and covered in graffiti. Its famous pre-war 'red rattlers' have disappeared and so has reliability, let alone charm.