Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland takes a question to round out the press conference, explaining why it's impossible for the government to roster on additional employees to account for this level of absence.

"On any normal day we have staff absent from duties … [we have] standby arrangements in place and we have staff at depots to cover those shifts," he says.

"[But] what we saw on Friday was unprecedented sick leave, and in those circumstances it is difficult to plan because we do not know, depot by depot, where we will see absences."

Thanks for following our live moment — and good luck to you if you're planning on catching a train in Sydney tomorrow.

Murray finishes his segment of the presser by appealing to the RTBU to return to the deal they were close to agreeing to before negotiations fell through on Thursday night.

"If the union is serious [that] they were that close to doing a deal with a fair and comprehensive package on the table, let's get back to it," he says.

"Put the industrial action to the side, take commuters out of the firing line, and let's have those discussions that round out the package.

"We know the workforce doesn't want to be in the middle of this, commuters certainly don't want to be in the middle of this, and they expect better, so let's sort that out [and] get back to that package, which we were this close to doing a deal on."

Murray is now addressing the Fair Work Commission's decision to dismiss the government's case today, which hinged on a lack of evidence that Friday's staff absences were coordinated by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union.

"Today we saw the commission unable to rule in our favour ... because they were looking for more of a pattern of behaviour," he says.

"Well we don't have the luxury of time ... if we take ourselves back to last Thursday, we had the rail union say the deal was done, that it was absolutely on the table to be signed, and then we saw this last-minute $4,500 bonus claim that would cost the state $67 million.

"We just cannot have these ambit claims thrown in at the end there taking the system off track and making commuters pay once again."

Transport for NSW secretary Josh Murray opens his segment of the press conference with an apology to commuters.

"Sunday nights can be tough enough in preparing for the working week without thinking about the uncertainty of how you're going to get to work and how long it's going to take," he says.

"Across Transport we'll be doing everything possible to make services as smooth as we can, but the reality is there are no guarantees tomorrow morning, and as we look towards the next Fair Work Commission hearing on Wednesday.

"We wanted to have these matters heard faster, but that's not possible under this scenario."

"I want to be very clear, there is no lock in place," Longland says.

"Sydney Trains has not locked any of our staff out of the workplace. We are encouraging, and continue to encourage, all of our rostered staff to please report for duty [and] undertake your normal duties.

"We'll be operating and planning for a normal timetable throughout the week, but we do expect that there will be delays and cancellations on Monday and those delays could be quite unpredictable. It will depend on how many staff report for duty.

He says commuters are encouraged to plan ahead and use Trip Planner to think about other modes of transport if they need to travel through Sydney on Monday.

"We operate 3200 services each week day across Sydney. When we have significant staff absence it creates major issues in our scheduling and the operation of our services. That is what we saw occur on Friday," he says.

"We will provide updates in the early morning tomorrow … and we will manage the network in real-time from the rail operations centre."

Sydney Trains CEO Matt Longland is up now to provide an update on the situation for commuters this weekend.

He says more than 500 services were delayed or cancelled across the rail network on Saturday, but normal services are operating today given the smaller Sunday timetable.

"The good news is that today we've got normal services operating, except for minor delays as a result of some trackwork in the west from Granville through to Lidcombe, but we are seeing a good service across the rail network today at this stage — although we do have around 260 of our train crew absent from duty again today."

The minister says the government is focused on "fair pay and conditions for rail workers", rather than other demands made by the Rail, Tram and Bus Union.

"[Workers] are under pressure too, we can understand why they need [a pay rise], but the government can't move on a series of other claims that don't relate to that," he says.

"We can't sign a blank cheque to settle this dispute. If we did, there'd be another demand in six months' time. We'd be back here again explaining why another demand was bringing the rail network to a halt."

Graham seems to be running short on patience as he runs through the current state of negotiations.

"This dispute over time has been about a range of things — at one point it was about running trains 24 hours a day, at another point it was about free fairs, now it is about a $4,500 sign on bonus. We can't afford bells and whistles here," he says.

"What we can offer is fair pay and conditions, pay and conditions in line with what the government has settled with other workers, what it would like to offer to other workers across the public service."

The minister says he acknowledges the commission's decision to dismiss the government's case today, but he doesn't fully agree with its view that industrial action is decreasing — only that the impact has been less harmful due to weekend scheduling.

"While that is good, the government fear is this — industrial action could increase as more commuters are on the network [through the week], and we will see increased impacts on commuters," he says.

"We will not hesitate to file again that application that was dealt with today."

Transport Minister John Graham says the government will on Wednesday ask the full bench of the Fair Work Commission to bring the rail network's industrial action to an end.

"This negotiation has been going on for 10 months. The government view is it is time to stop industrial action, the impact on community and businesses and allow parties to sort through final details and come to a landing," he says.