My husband and l travelled from Broadmeadows to Chiltern on Sunday by a replacement bus, a Sunshine bus, that experienced problems with the lower gears in Benalla at the stop lights eventually taking off in a higher gear, stalling twice.

We were to be dropped off at Chiltern and seeing that he wasn’t stopping, we yelled out “Chiltern!”

Approaching the station, we were left 150 metres short of the train station, through no fault of the driver. Unable to find any gears he rolled back down the street.

We have our children living in Melbourne, and they won’t use the train/bus due to the length of time to travel back home and return the next day, which means we miss seeing our children.

This issue is impacting families.

We were an agent for V/line for 10 years and over that time it was very unusual for a train to be late, or not running.

First it’s the lines, next it’s the train’s fault, a driver was ill was one excuse, toilets (which is odd as we never had one on the previous bus) ect.

We need answers, we need new trains and more carriages, and we need the kiosk to be open.

It’s the main line between Melbourne and Sydney. Melbourne has the lastest skyrail … The Melbourne Port was sold for a huge profit and that money belonged to all Victorians. Daniel Andrews, please let our kids come home.

As Wodonga continues to develop and the old railway station has become a feature, at times local business has suffered. I have thought for a while that by closing High Street from the old railway line up to the Lawrence Street intersection, that area could be turned into an open mall.

We could bring the miniature railway up from the Causeway and run it around the old railway station and then around the new ‘mall’. You could charge people a nominal all-day fee and the train could have several carriages and several pick-up/drop-off points. This would help promote local business, be unique to Wodonga and if High Street was set up as a mall, I believe it could be easily managed and become a real feature which could attract more spending in our community.

I know it’s a raw idea and there would be some infrastructure costs, but it could just work. What do you all think?

Clean Up Australia Day and its accompanying events, Schools Clean Up Day on Friday March 2 and Business Clean Up Day on Tuesday February 27, are just around the corner.

Over the last 27 years volunteers have donated more than 32 million hours at over 171,000 locations across the country. Together they have removed the equivalent of 344,000 ute loads of rubbish.

Clean Up Australia Day is more important than ever. Our increased dependency on single-use items is making Clean Up Australia Day even more relevant than it was when it started 27 years ago so I urge you to get your friends, family, team mates and colleagues together and sign up at http://cleanupaustraliaday.org.au.