Her re-commitment to rail comes as the Border Rail Action Group yesterday released its own report card on the major political parties in terms of the Albury line.

The group’s summations are bleak, with only the Coalition making a short-term commitment to the line with an extra weekday return service, refurbished N-class set, and a bus service connecting Wodonga station to the city centre.

The Coalition’s long-term commitment of seeking new long-haul sets by early 2020s is countered by BRAG’s assertion that neither sitting MP Bill Tilley nor his party had “committed to supporting a priority to the North East corridor in the distribution of new rolling stock”.

Labor had made no short-term commitments to the line but had the support of Ms Podesta in lobbying to make the North East a priority.

Ms Podesta said she had asked Labor’s transport spokeswoman Jill Hennessy to recognise the North East’s needs; this request has not resulted in an outcome or commitment yet.

“The North East line is the largest market of the distant lines and so I feel we have a very strong case given commuters on the line have endured such a low standard of service for such a long time,” she said.

“Ideally we would want to be upgraded to the V/Locity type trains which are running on lines to Echuca, but I think at this stage an upgrade to newer, cleaner and more comfortable trains would be a positive step in the right direction.”

The Greens also made no short-term commitments but candidate Dick Wellard, upper house candidate Jenny O’Connor and the party agreed to pursue it as a priority.

BRAG member Bill Traill said the group’s scorecard was based largely on what priority commitments the parties had made because without it, “our line, our rail issues on this corridor will extend well beyond a decade”.

“Albury-Wodonga is the third largest urban population served by V/Line, yet our rail service provision is merely a small fraction of Ballarat and Bendigo,” he said.

“In a market-oriented economy, we simply deserve better.”