AFTER more than a decade of dramas on the North East railway line what more can possibly be said on the issue?
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Border Rail Action Group convenor Bill Traill probably summed it up best when he said the public had become conditioned to accepting a sub-standard service and nothing was going to change in the immediate future.
His comments come as the Albury to Melbourne line returned to the spotlight for all the wrong reasons with confirmation from V/Line that 30 trains had been cancelled from Boxing Day to New Year’s Day.
It is an alarming statistic and prompted V/Line to issue an apology to train users for the inconvenience.
The cause of the mass disruption has been breakdowns with the four locomotives dedicated to the North-East line and forcing passengers onto buses for their trips which have in many instances arrived later than expected.
According to V/Line the unforeseen faults are unrelated, but there is one obvious common denominator – the age of the locomotives.
A Victorian auditor general report on V/Line passengers services in August last year revealed much of the rolling stock in operation on regional routes such as the North East had in been in service beyond their “designed life” typically specified as 30 years.
As many already know, the problems on the North East line are two-pronged.
Parts of the track are stuffed with the federal government committing $100 million to the section from Albury to Seymour to hopefully fix what the Australian Rail Track Corporation has been unable to do in the past as the track owners.
And the rolling the stock, locomotives and carriages, should have been retired years ago.
The glimmer of hope this mess can be fixed is the federal government pledge to repair the track once and for all.
Hollow promises from politicians of all persuasions have been made over this long and tiresome journey, but the recently deposed federal transport and infrastructure minister Darren Chester was showing more interest than any of his predecessors over the last 15 years.
His replacement, Deputy Prime Minister Barnaby Joyce, must come to the North East very soon and assure everyone the upgrade remains very much on track.