VIC’S $ 147m TRAIN FIX
THE Labor State Government has pledged $147 million to duplicate part of Geelong’s rail line, remove level crossings and plan a rail link to Armstrong Creek.
Premier Daniel Andrews will make an election commitment to partner with the Federal Government on duplicating 11km of Geelong rail between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds stations.
The funding will account for 20 per cent of the project’s expected $736 million price tag, with the Federal Government to provide the remainder.
“Geelong is growing and more people than ever are catching the train,” Mr Andrews said.
“We said we’d do the groundwork for the entire Geelong line to be duplicated to fix this and we have — but there’s more to do.”
“Only Labor will finish the job and deliver the massive upgrade the Geelong line needs, giving locals more train services, with boom gates gone for good.”
The funded project will remove level crossings at Fyans St and on the Surf Coast Highway, upgrade South Geelong and Marshall stations and develop a business case to fix a 400m South Geelong tunnel bottleneck.
The State Government also committed to launching planning for the next stage of work on a rail link between Marshall and Geelong’s major growth area of Armstrong Creek.
Completion of the duplication project is expected to allow for trains to run between Waurn Ponds and Melbourne every 10 minutes at peak times, delivering up to 255 extra services from Waurn Ponds, 235 services from Marshall and 45 services from South Geelong each week.
The State Government said works on the funded project would start in 2020 and be completed by 2023, creating about 1300 jobs in that time.
The commitment will be on top of $150 million in Federal Government funding and $10 million of State Government funding announced for the project — most of which was used for stage one.
It is understood $110 million has been allocated to stage one, used for preparatory works and to help secure a future transport corridor to Torquay.