THE woes of the North East V/Line service are being brought home to the Victorian Premier by his mother.
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Daniel Andrews told The Border Mail the last time he travelled the North East line was a "long time ago".
But he said he felt like a train user because his Wangaratta mother Jan regularly give him her experiences of the service in "not the most glowing terms".
"I kind of feel like I'm a regular user because I get a weekly update, because my mum is in Melbourne a lot," he said.
"She tries to (use it to commute), but it's a coach more than a train and that's not the way it should be.
"I'm not being boastful, but I almost feel like I'm a regular passenger because I do get a very frank, very curt assessment from my mum."
But Mr Andrews was unable to say there would be any short-term boost to the service which has been beset by track, reliability and punctuality issues.
"People are working hard to try and bring about some improvements," he said.
"I certainly wouldn't want to be looking back in five years, saying things were no better.
"The exact answer to it, well it's probably more than just us, but let's hope we can work together in a positive way and finally deliver the improvements that people right throughout the North East need."
Asked about the Victorian Greens leader Greg Barber's call for the government to commit money in the next budget to improving services, Mr Andrews was non-committal.
"The Greens would like us to spend $100 billion on some fast rail link to Sydney and all this sort of stuff,” Mr Andrews said.
"I think we've got to be a bit more realistic than that.
"I would hope there are some practical things we could do and I'd ask people to be patient.
"I'm not for a moment being anything but upfront, there needs to be improvement, absolutely and I get that message professionally and privately regularly.
"Let's just do the work and hope we've got some positive things to say in the future, but clearly it has to get better."
