Hard to keep track of V/Line profits

THIS Geelong Advertiser headline from January 11 captured my attention: “V/Line’s rollercoaster ride”.

This was not suggesting, I sincerely hoped, that V/Line travel had somehow morphed into a sideshow-like roller-coaster, as queasy memories of Movie

World’s Lethal Weapon came flooding back (the least said about that, the better!) That track to Melbourne can be a tad jumpy at places, but a “roller-coaster”?

The sub-heading gave a better clue of where the article was going: “Passenger numbers down in 2020-21 but profits up.”

Well, I almost laughed out loud, spluttering into my muesli! Not laughing at V/Line itself, but at the intrinsic absurdity of what was being suggested.

That heading took me immediately to Jim Hacker of Yes Minister fame. In one classic episode, the hapless minister visited a hospital deemed to be the epitome of efficiency and “. . . the best run hospital in the country”.

Yet, Hacker was astonished to find it had not employed one medical staff member nor admitted a single patient!

And then to Basil Fawlty, who clearly could run a marvellous hotel if it were not for the pesky guests! To be fair, I’m not sure the long-suffering Basil actually ever uttered such words, but virtually everything he did suggested this to be his underlying management philosophy.

Of course, Jim Hacker and Basil Fawlty are fictional characters, but was that headline somehow suggesting V/Line could run an extremely profitable service if it were not for the passengers? Well, it turns out, not quite.

V/Line passenger numbers were down by a staggering 51 per cent on the previous year. During the heights of the 2020 and 2021 lockdowns, whenever a train went past at a Geelong crossing, I struggled to see more than a handful of passengers, if any.

Yet a higher operating surplus was achieved. V/Line’s 2020-21 annual report attributes this to substantially lower operating costs: “A net profit of $26.7m, was ahead of the prior year and resulted primarily from lower than anticipated operating expenditure through effective cost control, a lower than planned growth in labour costs and the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic.”

At one level, that result could be commended as appropriate resource management in what were – and no doubt continue to be – very difficult operating conditions. Without entering into the fast-rail issue, what we in Geelong essentially seek is a timely, regular and very reliable rail service to Melbourne.

Having commuted to Melbourne for four years in the late 1970s and early 1980s, when express red-rattler journeys generally took just on an hour – admittedly with far fewer services – I was curious to check how things stood now.

The current V/Line Geelong line timetable reveals 59 weekday services between Geelong Station and Southern Cross. The reverse direction has 57 services, with two very early morning services on Tuesdays to Fridays.

Looking at scheduled journey times, the fastest service I could find from Geelong station was 59 minutes (5.28am service) with a number of other morning services about 60 and 61 minutes. Every service to Southern Cross in peak hour stops at one or more of

Deer Park, Tarneit or Wyndham Vale stations.

But on the return, the 4.46pm service takes 57 minutes and the 5.29pm service only 53 minutes. Not surprisingly, neither of these services stop at Deer Park, Tarneit or Wyndham Vale.

Taking passengers at these stations was never part of the original Regional Rail Link project “sell” to the Geelong community (sorry – a pet beef of mine). In fact, the 2018 Victorian Auditor General’s Office report found one of the RRL project’s major benefits to be “access to reliable public transport for people on Melbourne’s western fringe”.

Melbourne’s west clearly needed such, but should that have been a purpose of a project essentially designed to benefit non-metropolitan Victoria?

Still, with just on 60 weekday services, running only minutes apart at times, perhaps we cannot complain too much.

Surely, V/Line’s most significant current challenge is to encourage people off congested roads and back on to their trains.

In the meantime, V/Line does not need to call in Basil Fawlty . . . just yet anyway!

AND THEN TO BASIL FAWLTY, WHO CLEARLY COULD RUN A MARVELLOUS HOTEL IF IT WERE NOT FOR THE PESKY GUESTS!