Wangaratta Council mayor Dean Rees rapt with the ARTC's proposed upgrades to town's train station

The Australian Rail Track Corporation uploaded a 3D fly-through of the proposed works to Youtube last week where it signaled its intentions to remove the two existing pedestrian overpasses with an underpass.

An extra 22 parking spaces will be created, while the lower track, nicknamed 'the dive' will be removed and a new platform built on the western side of the precinct.

Wangaratta mayor Dean Rees said the council preferred an underpass to an overpass.

"To see the plan the ARTC are offering is amazing and the amount of work that will go is worth $15 to $30 million," he said.

"It will be a fantastic project once it's completed and it looks like it's going to start earlier than a number of other projects, which will be good for Wangaratta.

"It will open it up so much more rather than having a big overhead situation.

"It was explained to us all last week at a briefing session and all councillors seem fairly rapt with how it was going to look. It will clean up the railway precinct which has been a disgrace for the last 20 or 30 years.

"It coincides with us spending $6.5 million on our streetscape work around Norton Street, so it's only going to enhance to whole area by closing in 'the dive' and make more parking available.

"It's a great thing for Wangaratta."

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Ovens Valley MP Tim McCurdy said he had recently met with the ARTC and the Wangaratta Rail Action Group to discuss the progress of the consultation period.

"The Wangaratta Rail Action Group were pleasantly surprised and mostly supportive of the changes proposed by ARTC and were pleased that they had listened to their concerns," Mr McCurdy said.

"I too was pleasantly surprised with the changes implemented, as these have shown the significant improvements made to the design and have also shown the effectiveness of the community consultation, as many of the suggestions and comments were taken on board.

"I encourage all Wangaratta residents who still have concerns about the changes to be made at the railway station to speak up.

"The finishing line of the consultation process is in sight, please have your say so we can move to the next phase."

Official designs will be released today as per the ARTC schedule.

The ARTC is available for discussion with the community on the project throughout March at its Wangaratta shopfront at 48a Norton Street from 10am to 2pm.

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