Future of rail in limbo
Assessment under way
THE fate of Geelong rail commuters will be in the hands of the nation’s peak infrastructure body as they assess duplicating part of the Geelong line.
Almost two years after planning money was allocated, the business case for the duplication between South Geelong and Waurn Ponds is complete and will soon be handed to Infrastructure Australia.
But commuters are yet to be told if that entire section of the line will be duplicated or how many extra services the major project, likely to cost hundreds of millions of dollars, will deliver.
It is not yet known how the project will tackle the South Geelong tunnel which is considered a bottleneck by commuters.
“Clearly that’s a constraint so you can assume from the constraint that we need to address it,” Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan said.
It comes as the government has pledged $50 million to investigate fast rail between Geelong and Melbourne, and to connect the region to Tullamarine airport through a regional rail hub in Sunshine.
Ms Allan said the study will also assess delivering highspeed rail to Avalon Airport.
“We will involve Avalon as part of the planning scopes be- cause Avalon is an important employment hub.”
Avalon Airport CEO Justin Giddings said a rail link at or near the airport would improve his chances of enticing more international carriers.
“Being able to say to airlines ‘we’ve got direct (fast) rail that goes in 15 or 20 minutes into the Melbourne CBD’ would be an enormous boost,” Mr Giddings said.
“If you could have a 20-min- ute service you all of a suddenly almost become an inner suburban (Melbourne) locale from a time point of view.
“In the future, rail is going to be key as you see roads get more and more congested.”
Passenger trips on the Waurn Ponds, Geelong and Warrnambool lines have almost tripled in the past decade to 7.61 million in 2016-17, and the region’s population is expected to hit 500,000 by 2051.
Almost 100 services were added to the Geelong corridor last year, and 287 have been added since 2014.
Shadow Transport Minister David Davis said: “The reliability and punctuality of train services to Geelong have declined over the last three years. How can anyone expect Daniel Andrews to build a faster train service when he can’t even run the current service properly?” Source: V/Line
The Liberal Nationals government has announced it will spend $633 million to build and deliver new VLocity style trains if elected at the November poll.
The State Government’s fast rail study will look into the alignment of the railway, what type of trains are needed and electrifying the existing Geelong rail line.
Premier Daniel Andrews has canvassed a 2025 start date for the high-speed link.