Expert’s views on rail plan at pub

THE future of Victoria’s rail network is a complex issue one civil engineer will address with residents this month.

Jeff Moran will speak about the implications from current upgrades to the network and what it might mean for Ballarat in his Politics in the Pub speech on Thursday 16 April at the Bunch of Grapes Hotel.

The address comes as the state and federal governments have invested $4.1 billion in delivering the first stage of the Melbourne Airport rail link, with works underway.

A former official with VicRoads and the Department of Transport, Moran set up his own consultancy firm in the 2010s and became a noted advocate for high-speed rail.

In his address, Moran will speak about how changes to the state government’s Western Rail Plan could affect service capacity.

The plan in 2018 proposed fast speed rail services to Geelong and Ballarat and metropolitan lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale.

However, Moran said a plan for a rail tunnel between Southern Cross and Sunshine was ditched for connecting the Melbourne Airport rail link directly to the Metro Tunnel via West Footscray and Albion.

“This effectively reduces capacity in the Sunshine corridor by a third and means that not all proposed new services will fit,” he said.

Mr Moran said that without the extra tracks a possible tunnel between Sunshine and Southern Cross could have provided, and an electrified line to Melton remaining unfunded, there was a possibility more pressure could be placed on services.

He said such examples could include services that are less frequent.

“From that 2018 plan, there’s a reduction of a third in the number of trains that can get through here,” he said. “The only way it can be accommodated is by getting more people onto bigger trains and having fewer, less frequent services.”

A Department of Transport and Planning spokesperson said: “The Melbourne Airport Rail Stage 1 works between West Footscray and Albion are creating new dedicated tracks for airport services and future electrified trains to Melton – removing the bottleneck at Sunshine and enabling up to 1000 trains a day through the corridor.

“We’ve already delivered major upgrades on the Ballarat line, adding 135 extra weekly services and improving reliability – and the works at Sunshine build on that by creating the space needed to run even more trains, more often.”

Passengers in Melbourne’s west are expected to benefit from the state and federal governments’ joint $650 million investment in the Melton Line Upgrade.

The upgrade will boost passenger capacity by 50 per cent by allowing longer nine-car VLocity trains to run on the line from 2027 – one year ahead of schedule.

Politics in the Pub will start from 6.30pm. Bookings can be made for the free event at trybooking.com.