Gee, Wallan is so far away. How can that be a priority for electrification over high density & relatively close to CBD suburbs like rowville, Doncaster, wollert, point cook and all those western suburbs.
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That’s true.
I reckon Rowville and Doncaster will need their own underground Metro lines, especially Doncaster since the space along the centre median of the Eastern Freeway will soon be eaten up by extra lanes as part of the North East Link project.
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It does help when the rail track is already there to Wallan. It’s much easier and cheaper to electrify existing tracks than acquiring land and building new lines from scratch.
It’s also a logical Metro terminus when there’s been such immense growth in that Hume Fwy corridor between Craigieburn and Wallan (feels like a new suburb or estate pops up there every few weeks).
If it were up to me, I’d make Wallan a park and ride hub for regional Victoria. If they put in the facilities to park your car securely there overnight (with trains leaving there at 20 minute or so frequencies), a fair few people would choose that over the stress of driving all the way into the city. Anything that takes cars out of the city is a good thing after all.
That said, all those areas (Rowville, Doncaster, Point Cook, Wollert) absolutely deserve a proper train connection as well, the fact that they never had one to begin with is a big failure in long term transport planning.
That’s why I’m not sold on the SRL as a priority project (and especially starting it in the south east), when there’s so many areas in and around Melbourne that are crying out for one decent train service, providing that service to those areas should be a priority over what is a nice to have, but extremely expensive rail line that services many areas already well serviced by trains.
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The best way to do it is to build a branch line from the existing Werribee line, but I am not sure where the space will come from without demolishing dozens of relatively new houses.
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And Wallan isn’t really growing massively like the outer western suburbs such as Melton, which itself desperately need electrification before some two bit town that’s out of Melbourne’s metropolitan periphery. I mean taking a diesel train to Caroline Springs (which as far as I remember, is a Melbourne suburb compared to Wallan) is just a travesty these days.
Again the big build has the priorities wrong when it should be focused on the west than the east.
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V set makes its last trip out of Sydney tonight.
Maybe the idiots who think its their right wont use the new trains as a friggin bed and sprawl out on the Satueday and Sunday morning trips. Sit up for once.
smh.com.au/national/nsw/sad-goodbye-end-of-era-for-workhorse-of-nsw-railways-20250626-p5majs.html
The area between Wallan and Craigieburn is growing at a massive pace, arguably at the moment than out Melton way.
Places like Donnybrook, Kalkallo and Beveridge are now fully fledged Melbourne suburbs and would be the biggest beneficiaries of electrification to Wallan.
Not to mention Wallan at this point is hardly a two-bit town these days, it’s almost an outer suburb in itself (and most likely will be within the next decade), there’s heaps of new housing estates out there.
It’s as much a part of Melbourne as places like Cranbourne and Pakenham, the latter of which is actually around 10kms further from the city yet no one seems to
I can agree it is farcical that you have Melbourne suburbs like Tarneit and Melton that are not serviced by Metro trains, but Wallan electrification is a needed and worthy project as well given the population growth in that corridor. I don’t see why we need to pit the two against each other when they both have strong business cases (certainly compared to some other projects in the pipeline at the moment).
I 100% agree with this, the west should be a priority and the lack of investment in this area from the Big Build (compared to the investment in well serviced areas in the east) is rather poor.
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Doncaser, yes, that would need to be a major project for the distant future. but Rowville would break away at huntingdale and use the median strip of wellington rd for most of the way. Then just light industry, preserved corridor and sidings all the way to lysterfield.
There was a plan presented by those councils to branch off from the altona line, sacrifice some linear parks, and run the line along the south of the current developments. There would likely be some rapid urban sprawl south of that line, making the stations the new town centres.
Wollert would also be relatively simple there look like there is a corridor preserved from Lalor station
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For the Central Coast Line (Sydney to Newcastle) at least. They’re still running Sydney to Lithgow on the Blue Mountains Line for the time being.
The Central Coast Line (and South Coast Line) also still uses H sets, which will be transferred to suburban services as the new D sets are rolled out.
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Well they’re carrying on like its the last time. 7 News was even interviewing passengers on the train I was on.
Short video of the V set train arriving at Epping station last night, on its final trip to Newcastle
It’s going to be very confusing for most Brisbane bus commuters from this Monday with many routes being changed or rerouted .Not everyone will be happy with the changes either .TransLink will receive a lot of complaints from people.
Could you give us contact on why there’s a reroute?
Brisbane Metro is a big part of why
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I’ll google it.
Yes The Brisbane Metro.Overseas tourists will arrive here and think it’s a light rail service.Just a fancy name for the new long electric buses,ie:bendy buses that now travel along the city busway network.
Brisbane Metro is a better name for Cross River Rail IMO.
Just call the buses Bendy Bus Network or something
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Cross River Rail isn’t a metro either, it’s a component of the commuter rail network.
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