Bill Tilley (Liberal, Benambra) and Steph Ryan (Nationals, Euroa) on Wednesday spruiked a plan to spend millions on upgrading the North East line to allow for 160km/h so-called European-style high speed rail trains.

They pledged to cut the Wodonga-Melbourne trip from 3 hours and 27 minutes to 2 hours and 44 minutes. 

“Since we launched our first policy on replacing the N-Class rolling stock to V/Locitys … we have now put this policy on absolute steroids because the community, business, our economies have been telling us that’s exactly what they want,” Mr Tilley said.

“On the North East line up to $2 billion will be spent on the rail infrastructure and the rolling stock, suffice to say that have the convictions, the courage to support us and back us in, because we have been working really hard for our community to realise that.”   

The Coalition has said, if elected, it will in its first budget order V/Locity train sets to succeed 1980s locomotives and carriages.

Mr Tilley and Ms Ryan said that commitment remained but investment in the North East line to a higher standard would result in faster V/Locitys operating by 2028.

Ms Ryan said she “totally” understands there will be scepticism in the North East over the rail plan, given track and carriage woes.

“I’d ask people to actually assess our record against the government’s,” she said.

“This is a huge commitment for our region and one that we will deliver over the next decade.

“We have put money in our budget for new rolling stock … there’s no wavering or blurred timeframes around new rolling stock.

“We’ve said 2019 we’ll order those trains in our first budget and they will be on the tracks within our first term.

“We’ve said we will upgrade this line to class one within a decade, they’re pretty clear kind of commitments and we’re not getting that from (Premier) Daniel Andrews or the Labor Party.” 

But Jacinta Allan said the Coalition could not be believed.

“These sort of proposals just will never be delivered because you just can't trust the Liberal and National parties when it comes to supporting regional public transport because in the past they've closed country train lines, they've closed country train stations, they've cut funding to V/Line, they've had plans to sack jobs in our V/Line services,” she said.

“That's their record and it's only on the eve of an election that these parties, the Liberal-National parties come and talk to country people about country train services.”