FINALLY, Border and North East rail passengers have 100 million reasons to smile.
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After years, even decades, of frustration at the state of the line between the Border and Melbourne, the federal government has committed to spending $100 million to fix rough sections of the track and remove speed restrictions.
The news is long overdue - just as many a train between the Victorian capital and Albury-Wodonga has too often been.
Federal Minister for Infrastructure and Transport Darren Chester is right when he says “locals want to use the train more often, but currently can’t always rely on the service”.
Investing in the line, which is managed by the Federal Government’s Australian Rail Track Corporation, paves the way for the Victorian Government to put its money where its mouth is and provide us with new trains, namely the VLocity model which operates on the Ballarat, Bendigo, Geelong and Gippsland lines.
“This has gone on for a very long time … Let's have the federal government provide the money for the track and my government will provide the money for the trains and we will get on with making this service much, much better,” he said.
“We stand ready once allocations are made to improve the track to fulfill our important obligations around trains. Residents across the North East are sick and tired of it.”
Trains on the Albury-Wodonga line were built in the 1980s and are due to reach the end of their working life by 2025.
For too long, Border passengers have been made to feel like second class citizens when it comes to rail.
They were welcome words from Mr Andrews a few weeks ago but they were just words. We need to see action.
New rolling stock was nowhere to be seen when the 2017-18 Victorian budget was rolled out last week, with the government committing just $40 million of its overall $1.45 billion package to start design work on trains for the North East line.
The Premier on the record as saying he’ll come to the party with new trains, so let’s make sure he does. It’s over to you, Dan.