Western suburbs rail boost pushed back to 2030s and beyond

5 hours ago 2

In this special series, The Age focuses on Melbourne’s western suburbs to see how life could improve in Australia’s fastest-growing region.

See all 29 stories.

Trains on the Melton line will not be electrified until at least the 2030s, with commuters in some of Melbourne’s fastest-growing suburbs on the Wyndham Vale line destined to wait even longer for higher-capacity, metro-style trains.

The state government is even investigating running battery-powered trains to Wyndham Vale, on the line which runs through boom suburbs including Tarneit and Truganina, instead of delivering on the promised, but potentially more costly, electrification of the line.

The morning commuter crush at Rockbank station on the Melton line.

The Andrews government pledged in the 2018 election campaign that it would electrify lines to Melton and Wyndham Vale, which both rely on regional V/Line trains while servicing the fastest-growing urban corridor in Australia, which is forecast to be home to 1.8 million people by 2050.

Victorian transport tsar Jeroen Weimar told the West of Melbourne Summit on Thursday that the Melton line would be electrified after the $4.1 billion Sunshine station redevelopment was done. The Sunshine station overhaul is due for completion by 2030.

Age reporters moderated the West of Melbourne Economic Development Alliance (WoMEDA) summit to discuss a vision for the western suburbs’ success.

Capacity improvements on the Wyndham Vale line would follow some time after Melton line electrification, and might not necessarily involve electrification of the line, Weimar said. They could instead be delivered through the use of the emerging technology of battery-powered trains.

“There is an order of priority,” Department of Transport and Planning secretary Weimar told the summit. “Get Sunshine done, get Melton [electrification] done, then continue to expand capacity down to Wyndham Vale.”

In its economic growth strategy, WoMEDA identified that better transport was needed for the area’s future.

The report said it was essential that the Melton and Wyndham Vale train lines were electrified, so those rapidly growing areas could be served by Metro, rather than V/Line trains. But the group said the Melton project had an uncertain delivery date and Wyndham Vale had been put on hold indefinitely.

The ongoing project to extend platforms on the Melton line to accommodate nine-car trains, rather than the current six, would provide “a little bit of breathing room” before the line needed further capacity expansion through electrification, Infrastructure Victoria chief executive Jonathan Spear said.

Department of Transport and Planning secretary Jeroen Weimar says rail capacity boosts for Melton and Wyndham must follow the Sunshine station redevelopment.

“Electrification to Melton is something that our model shows there is super-high demand for, and it’s a logical thing to do once that work around Sunshine station is completed,” Spear said.

Concerns about the delivery of key projects promised for the western suburbs come as the Allan government struggles to balance its finances under the weight of an already enormous infrastructure program, including the $26 billion North East Link and $34.5 billion Suburban Rail Loop East, both in the eastern suburbs.

Melton City Council is also pushing for the upgrade of the Western Freeway, which has received $1 billion in funding from the federal Albanese government but has no start date.

Brookfield resident Brad Bonnici left his full-time job as a lift mechanic in June because the daily commute on the Western Freeway was too long.

Brookfield resident Brad Bonnici says the Western Freeway is congested at all hours of the morning and needs a massive upgrade.

“It doesn’t matter if you left at 5am or 8am, the traffic was horrendous. Coming home was the same,” he said.

Bonnici, who has lived in the Melton area his whole life, said that the state government had promised upgrades to the road for years.

“We’d just like an upgrade to this freeway. It needs to be a minimum of four lanes … We’re expecting a massive upgrade, not just a Band-Aid fix,” he said.

“They’re happy to take our votes, they’re happy to take our taxes, but we get nothing out here.”

The state and federal governments committed $10 million each in late 2022 to develop a business case to upgrade the Western Freeway between Melton and Caroline Springs with additional lanes, and new interchanges and overpasses.

Premier Jacinta Allan told the summit the Victorian government had not put the upgrade of the Western Freeway between Caroline Springs and Melton on hold, but declined to provide a date on when works would start.

Allan said planning and environmental approvals were under way.

“The start date is dictated by having in place the planning work, environmental approvals. No one should come out and put a start date out there without having done that work … and that detailed work is still being undertaken,” she said.

Opposition Leader Brad Battin said Labor had long ago committed to, but not delivered, the electrification of the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines.

He said the Coalition had not yet settled on or costed its transport policies for next year’s election.

“But let me assure you, what we say, we’ll deliver. It will be costed, and you will get it, rather than coming out with a press release and building up hopes in the west again.”

Melton City Council chief executive Roslyn Wai said the $4 billion Sunshine Superhub works would open the way for the Metro extension to Melton, but she was concerned about when it and other essential projects would be delivered.

“We know it’s coming, it’s just not coming quick enough,” Wai said.

“There is a level of frustration. But also a level of understanding that there is a lot of demand on the state government.

“We understand that there needs to be consideration of prioritisation, but we can’t see any reason why there isn’t prioritisation for the west.”

Sunshine has been championed as the best candidate to be Melbourne’s second CBD and the redevelopment of Sunshine station is considered critical for it to capitalise on the Melbourne Airport Rail line, which is expected in the 2030s. WoMEDA has also called for the delivery of the airport train link to be brought forward.

Brimbank City Council chief executive Fiona Blair said that uncertainty regarding the timing of redevelopment around Sunshine station was holding back the suburb’s emergence as an employment and housing centre.

“It’s really important that it’s not just something that people go through on a train, but people actually stop there,” Blair said.

She said the council had approved about $600 million worth of development in the Sunshine precinct area, but only half was realised.

“What we really hear from developers is: ‘When’s it coming and what is coming?’ That’s really critical for them to determine what investment they will make,” Blair said.

Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights. Sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter.