Greater Parramatta has been singled out as the location for a major hub for dedicated fast rail lines connecting Sydney to Newcastle, Wollongong and the state’s west as part of long-term plans to boost public transport links.

A confidential cabinet document – obtained by the Herald and Nine News – also names Epping and an area around Campbelltown and Macarthur as sites for “key interchanges” to link the fast-rail lines to Sydney’s suburban rail network.

The ambition is for fast-rail trains in NSW to travel up to 250 kilometres an hour.

The draft strategy says a major fast-rail hub in greater Parramatta would deliver “easy access” to employment centres and health and education precincts.

It lays out a need to boost public transport links between Sydney and large population centres in Wollongong, the Central Coast and Newcastle.

“The transformation will include both new, dedicated fast rail lines to enable train speeds of up to 250 kilometres per hour, and improvements to the existing network to increase speeds on those sections to a maximum of 160 kilometres per hour,” it says.

“It also includes new trains and new or improved stations that, combined with radically faster travel times, will deliver a step change in customer experiences.”

The 320-page strategy by Transport for NSW cautions that dedicated fast rail lines would need to be built in sections over two to three decades “given the scale of the task”.

The cost of building a fast rail line between Sydney and Newcastle alone has been estimated to run into the tens of billions of dollars.

The Future Transport Strategy: Towards 2061 strategy estimates fast-rail trains will slash travel times between greater Parramatta and Newcastle from 2.5 hours to an hour, and result in a 25-minute journey from Parramatta to Gosford.