Justarider I think quadding would only be required to Laverton or Williams Landing if Geelong went through Metro 2.  
I'm not sold on the idea of an underground station being built at Newport because of:
- lack of space
- liklely very high cost
- limited benefit as an interchange (very few pax from Williamston and Altona would likely change).
I see Laverton serving as almost as good an interchange.

Geelong train could follow metro train as long as they can speed up the Metro train to 120k's an hour there would minimal time lost for Geelong pax compared to Quadding to Newport.

yeah nar, @John E

lets not get ahead of ouselves with minor detail.

My point is MM2 is twice as complex in scope and distance as MM1, and will be very expensive.

By the time any govt looks to detail design, the landscape will be very different  - MM1 running, western SRL scoped and partially done,  sparks a lot further out. Who knows, maybe 1/2 of Melbourne will be working from home on the Gold Coast.

cheers
John

As part of MM2, Altona Line really should be extended to the south of point cook, towards sneydes rd before hooking back towards Werribee. That area is a hogwash of 1 and 3 lane roadds that are bottlenecked full of people driving to Williams Landing.

No point Quadding to Laverton if you don't go the full way. Quad to Lara, extend Metro to Lara. Release some land for development in Little River.

It seems clear a tunnel is required for the airport link unless Metro 2 is built to take geelong trains off the RRL freeing up capacity for airport line trains?

With the state of Victorian finances with the onset of the issues around COVID19 and large investments in the health system and reduced receipts, using a super fund for the tunnel as outlined in https://t.co/ADfg0aUOAs makes a lot of sense to me.  Structure the deal for a buyout if you think it is better.

If this is not doable then take some of the wasted money being planned for the North East Link and put that into the western network capacity in the form of a tunnel.

yerr, nah

the problem with all the tunnel solutions so far, is the dead end at SCS.
The pathetic inabilty of V/line to quickly turn trains around, including RRL, completly strangles the TPH required to move the growing number of pax.
Those tunnels would have the same failing.

That is why I keep banging on about making as many lines as possible go thru MM1.
Just don't stop & turn in the CBD, keep going thru to the other end.
That magnifies the total throughput tremendously (excuse my chanelling of the Donald) .

MM2 may ultimately be the answer, but it has a few very expensive extra components

• Run through the CBD until meets Mernda line.
• Quad the Werribee line to Newport
• Spark the line to Geelong
• Spark & run backwards Wyndham Vale RRL, or make a loop, or some weird variation

Maybe eventually, but not yet.

I have no issue with a Super Fund being the financier (full disclosure, probably would be my retirement income a benefit)
BUT
I do object to private operators, including IFM, designing & building monster projects with little benefit other than profit gouging the public

cheers
John

Yeah/Nah it's not clear there's a need for a tunnel - indeed.

The tunnel, if it's required - City to Sunshine or MM2 - is probably a decision for 10 years away.

Everyone who has assumed continued mass population growth needs to cool their jets because for the next 2 years it's going to be well below the last 10 year's average (i.e we're getting a bit of breather) - I've no doubt the powers that be will aim to get it back up there but all population forecasts from the pre-corona period either need to be lengthened re: timeframes or discounted entirely (in a small amount of cases).

Having said that, that shouldn't stop the programme of work that has been set in motion - doubling down during a period of reprieve and very cheap money could be a good thing.

Thanks also for outlining capacity increases through the new trains again justarider, 400% on Melton puts things into perspective with a handful of hourly (6) services.

All this talk about tunnels just seems crazy, unless my maths is way, way out.

There are currently two track pairs into the city from Sunshine right (RRL and Metro)? So with proper investment in signalling, stabling, platforms etc. we should be able to run something close to 48 tph.  Perhaps RRL can only do 20, so call it 44 tph to be fair.

Looking at the current timetable, into Footscray between 7:30am and 8:30am we have:
5 Geelong services + 2 WV short starters
3 Ballarat services + 4 Bacchus Marsh/Melton short starters
3 Bendio services (1 is a Kyneton short starter)
10 Sunbury/Watergardens services

In total, 27 services along two corridors in a hour (way short of 44).  People are saying "but Melton, WV need more capacity" and yes, they do.  But even just by running HCMT instead of VLine, a small service increase will be a huge capacity increase.  It will also take those short starters off RRL.  If you sparked Melton and ran 6 tph, 12 to Sunbury and 4 to Airport (it's good enough for Hong Kong) you suddenly have only 13 trains running on RRL in an hour.  WV gets some extra VLos and wow we've saved billions on a tunnel.

All this talk about tunnels just seems crazy, unless my maths is way, way out.

There are currently two track pairs into the city from Sunshine right (RRL and Metro)? So with proper investment in signalling, stabling, platforms etc. we should be able to run something close to 48 tph.  Perhaps RRL can only do 20, so call it 44 tph to be fair.

Looking at the current timetable, into Footscray between 7:30am and 8:30am we have:
5 Geelong services + 2 WV short starters
3 Ballarat services + 4 Bacchus Marsh/Melton short starters
3 Bendio services (1 is a Kyneton short starter)
10 Sunbury/Watergardens services

In total, 27 services along two corridors in a hour (way short of 44).  People are saying "but Melton, WV need more capacity" and yes, they do.  But even just by running HCMT instead of VLine, a small service increase will be a huge capacity increase.  It will also take those short starters off RRL.  If you sparked Melton and ran 6 tph, 12 to Sunbury and 4 to Airport (it's good enough for Hong Kong) you suddenly have only 13 trains running on RRL in an hour.  WV gets some extra VLos and wow we've saved billions on a tunnel.

Yes, some people don't seem to get it.  

If Melton and Wyndham Vale are around the 3TPH mark with Vline going to 4TPH Metro/HCMT is an enormous capacity increase as justarider and you have pointed out.  

Some people think that suburbs spring up overnight - they don't - and a full build out scenario along the Melton corridor and the Wyndham Vale corridor is probably a minimum of 2 decades away.

Both branches - with Quad'ing happening progressively over a 10 year period from Sunshine to Melton and Deer Park to West Werribee - sticking with 4TPH in peak/off-peak for the first decade of operations will probably be more than enough capacity.  Ditto Airport @ 4TPH too.

In another 10 year's there'll be another decision point to get even more capacity - for instance MM2 or a Sunshine tunnel to cater for more Geelong, possibly Ballarat, but most definitely suburban (WV/Melton) services.

And the Sunbury/Watergardens peak timetable will barely need to change as well - as it is not going to see the same level of population growth as the Melton and WV corridors.  If the current timetable (peak) is matched like for like, there's a large capacity increase because of the HCMT capacity increase.  Off-peak is a different story - all the branches should be at 15 minute/4TPH frequencies.

I just hope they really open the wallets and sink a lot of cash and get Sunshine right now - including grade separate junctions (as well as doing the Albion junction properly with grade separation).

It's pretty funny that the as yet built Western Sydney airport will have trains before Melb airport gets a railway line:

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-06-01/sydney-metro-western-sydney-airport-extra-funding-pledged/12306184

It's pretty funny that the as yet built Western Sydney airport will have trains before Melb airport gets a railway line:

The Mawson Base in Antarctica will have a railway line to its airport before Melbourne does.

It's pretty funny that the as yet built Western Sydney airport will have trains before Melb airport gets a railway line:

The Mawson Base in Antarctica will have a railway line to its airport before Melbourne does.

This is one of the reasons I have always believed the FEDS do not send Vic money.  It is too hard and the projects are so far away meaning there is no political upside for doing so in the election cycle.  Andrews has really stuffed the airport link push back on Morrison over routes and pushing him to fund Sydney x 2 faster.  It is a shocking outcome for Melbourne and sends a lot of messages about how hard this guy is to work with.

Melbourne is so slow in getting rail and public transport started/built compared to Sydney.
First, they are going to start construction on the rail to the Western Sydney Airport by the end of this year. In Melbourne, why is it taking up until 2022 to start work. Further Sydney is building a further 5 railways stations on this airport line. It looks like Sydney will get two railway lines to the Airport, when Melbourne will have none. This airport rail link to melbourne airport should have been built decades ago.

Secondly, if you look at recent Sydney rail projects, they tend to build for the future by building superfluous train stations (e.g. Leppington on the South West rail link and Tallawong on the North-West metro). Melbourne can't even do that (e.g. we remove only two level crossings on the Upfield line when it would be wise to remove all of it as a whole project. Melbourne can't even electrify the Melton line and Wyndham line for god sakes, when it is serving one of the fastest growing areas in Australia. In contrast to Sydney, where rail stations are built to empty paddocks (etc. Leppington)

Thirdly, the Metro Tunnel is so expensive, yet the train station design concepts looks so simple and dull.
The high capacity metro trains don't even look metro-standard compared to the Sydney ones. The HCMT mainly looks like an upgraded Siemens train.

Management of rail projects in Victoria is really poor.  The constant dithering of the ALP in Victoria has cost their position on the Melbourne Airport Link to Sydney's second airport but it is actually worse.  More construction supply will now be consuming making it even harder to get Melbourne started.  

I cannot understand why it has taken over 1 year in Melbourne to come to a decision on the route?  What are the project office doing all this time?

The other comment from https://www.railpage.com.au/user/79269 is also true why does Victoria not build for the future as they are still talking about electrification to Melton years away.  Make it Ballarat and get it done.  Add stations along the way,  Clyde is years away with 1000's of houses are being built.

Victoria you delayed for years the metro 1 tunnel, you have delayed for years the airport line, how you are going to loose big time.  Perth has already completed most of their airport link build in the time Victoria has been chatting about how good they are.

It's pretty funny that the as yet built Western Sydney airport will have trains before Melb airport gets a railway line:

The Mawson Base in Antarctica will have a railway line to its airport before Melbourne does.

This is one of the reasons I have always believed the FEDS do not send Vic money.  It is too hard and the projects are so far away meaning there is no political upside for doing so in the election cycle.  Andrews has really stuffed the airport link push back on Morrison over routes and pushing him to fund Sydney x 2 faster.  It is a shocking outcome for Melbourne and sends a lot of messages about how hard this guy is to work with.

Bevan's I assume you are talking about Daniel Andrews being the "hard guy to work" with? Please explain further why he is so hard to work with? Andrews is probably quite rightly sticking to his guns about the Sunshine route being chosen rather than being held to ransom by a private consortium, which isn't in the long term interests of Victoria.

If Andrews pushing back has made the Feds decide to Fund West Sydney airport x 2 fastert, then this shows the petty political games the Feds are prepared to play.

Anyway 11 Billion dollars on airport rail link is a lot of money, for a spur line to a station that is 50 MINUTES from the city. In my opinion it would have been better if this could have somehow been part of the main Sydney West Metro line connecting at Parramatta (or Westmead) - more connections and a much faster journey to the city.

Bevan's I assume you are talking about Daniel Andrews being the "hard guy to work" with? Please explain further why he is so hard to work with? Andrews is probably quite rightly sticking to his guns about the Sunshine route being chosen rather than being held to ransom by a private consortium, which isn't in the long term interests of Victoria.

If Andrews pushing back has made the Feds decide to Fund West Sydney airport x 2 fastert, then this shows the petty political games the Feds are prepared to play.

Anyway 11 Billion dollars on airport rail link is a lot of money, for a spur line to a station that is 50 MINUTES from the city. In my opinion it would have been better if this could have somehow been part of the main Sydney West Metro line connecting at Parramatta (or Westmead) - more connections and a much faster journey to the city.

I would say this is not just a poor outcome for Victoria but the rest of Australia as the money could be better spent.

Hi John, happy to.

Bevan's I assume you are talking about Daniel Andrews being the "hard guy to work" with? Please explain further why he is so hard to work with? Andrews is probably quite rightly sticking to his guns about the Sunshine route being chosen rather than being held to ransom by a private consortium, which isn't in the long term interests of Victoria.

I don't believe it is the premier.  Mr. Andrews relies on the various department heads and the advice he receives from so called experts.  The saga of the airport line has been going on for at least 3 terms of government IIRC.  The private consortium is one aspect but the funds from the Federal Government come with a tunnel and there is nothing stopping, and I mean nothing trains being split between Melbourne Airport/Sunshine/Newport/Werribee and Melbourne Airport/Melbourne Central for example by both paths making the airport link even more valueable.

My understand is the premier was the Sunshine option but we don't know if the advice is other than this do we?  Either way it needs to be resolved.

My point is it takes TOO LONG to resolve these issues (and it is not just the airport line) in Victoria and too LONG to start the projects.  This is my view.

I'm also intrigued by the idea that the delay is somehow the fault of Andrews. In another month, that airport will celebrate 50 years since it was officially opened. A rail line there has been talked about for at least 40 of those years and Andrews has been Premier for just over six and a half of them.
The airport was opened on 1 July 1970 and Bolte was Premier. Since then we have had Hamer, Thompson, Cain jr, Kirner, Kennett, Bracks, Brumby, Bailleu and Napthine. Not one of them did a damn thing about a line to the airport. Is Andrews getting the blame because all of those former Premiers are his illegitimate children or is there another reason that I'm missing?

I'm also intrigued by the idea that the delay is somehow the fault of Andrews. In another month, that airport will celebrate 50 years since it was officially opened. A rail line there has been talked about for at least 40 of those years and Andrews has been Premier for just over six and a half of them.
The airport was opened on 1 July 1970 and Bolte was Premier. Since then we have had Hamer, Thompson, Cain jr, Kirner, Kennett, Bracks, Brumby, Bailleu and Napthine. Not one of them did a damn thing about a line to the airport. Is Andrews getting the blame because all of those former Premiers are his illegitimate children or is there another reason that I'm missing?

Its funny reading the out of towner's post on here.

Andrews is only copping the blame as he is the premier to announce he is going to do something about it. We all ready do have small minds when it comes to the Airport Rail Link. It's not as if plans have been sitting on the shelf for the last 40 years just waiting to go.

The Feds wanted the link to go via Maribyrnong as they are in the process of selling government land and were hoping that a rail link would add another zero to the sale price. I don't think its overly fair for the feds to be strong arming the state on what infrastructure it should be building for its own advantage. I also don't know why Andrews is copping flak for standing up for his state and trying to get the best outcome.

Secondly, were are all the conservative types slamming the NSW government for spending $11 billion on a second railway line to an airport that hasn't been built yet. A line which will mostly be green fields, there are no services or cities to negotiate just open paddocks. Andrews has copped a tone of crap for an estimated $10 Billion rail tunnel through a highly built up inner city area that will interact with serval other active rail lines.

Enough with the ranting, I do wonder if the PM will make it down to Melbourne this week to hand out another $5 Billion.

It's pretty funny that the as yet built Western Sydney airport will have trains before Melb airport gets a railway line:

The Mawson Base in Antarctica will have a railway line to its airport before Melbourne does.

This is one of the reasons I have always believed the FEDS do not send Vic money.  It is too hard and the projects are so far away meaning there is no political upside for doing so in the election cycle.  Andrews has really stuffed the airport link push back on Morrison over routes and pushing him to fund Sydney x 2 faster.  It is a shocking outcome for Melbourne and sends a lot of messages about how hard this guy is to work with.

Why is it Andrews fault? Because he does not want to be held over a barrel by some BS consortium who wants to gouge the merry hell out of Victoria, whilst expecting the State and Federal Governments to stump up most of the cash? For an Airport link?

Its good that Andrews has stuck to his guns. If it were up to me, apart from improving local bus routes and extending and rerouting tram 59, I would do nothing else.

Michael

Wow, can't believe there is this Sydney vs Melbourne mentality going on.
EDIT: I meant can't believe why we are comparing Sydney's western airport link with Melbourne's, they're very different

Also blaming the current government for all the past government's poor ability to upgrade the railway network.

EDIT: Bringing up the Chatswood link was unneccessery and brought in nothing constructive to the discussion.

Also another thing to note is Liberal government in NSW started their big transport agenda before Victoria's big transport agenda, this is due to the new incoming NSW government coming in 2011/2012, for Victoria it was 2014/2015. Please note why our big agenda is about 3 years behind.

Another thing it takes time to plan and get these projects underway. Sydney's second airport railway plan and West Metro were brought up years ago, now that planning has been done the construction is underway. (Also note the political change is 3 years ahead of Melbourne, by that time Airport rail link + Suburban rail loop + Cranbourne Duplication + Hurstbridge duplication + Sunbury line upgrade would be fully underway or almost complete.)

Level crossings is an unfortunate part of Melbourne's railway network, due to poor planning to remove them sooner, as Sydney did in the past. Note that Sydney's rail network is a completely different network to Melbourne, Melbourne railways branches out and has a very grid road network, which means a high proportion of crossings, compared with Sydney railway and road network.

The Upfield line is actually getting 4 crossing removal, not 2. Also by the way the Upfield line isn't the busiest line on the network and isn't the main focus for removals, the fact the Upfield line had 5 removals reduces it crossing count by . The Sunbury - Pakenham/Cranbourne corridor is where crossings are removed in masses and actually is saving money. The fact that whole corridor had a total of 35 level crossings prior to the LXRP, and once the LXRP is done will have 9 left, a reduction of 26 level crossings, which is significant since that's 1/3 of the program is focused on it. Another thing is it costs a tonne of money of doing a bunch of grade separating the railway, 1.6 billion to remove 9 crossings on the line, costs about 3 billion for removal of 20 crossings on the Frankston corridor. It adds up very quickly. It's just poor planning why it wasn't done at a rapid rate in the past to save money now.

Wow, can't believe there is this Sydney vs Melbourne mentality going on. Also blaming the current government for all the past government's poor ability to upgrade the railway network.

It was one simple and accurate comparison and it is not degenerating into a Sydney vs Melbourne fiasco. You're trying to make it one by telling us all what Sydney has and hasn't done etc, none of which is relevant to the Melbourne Airport Railway. I hope our posters ignore your bait.

Wow, can't believe there is this Sydney vs Melbourne mentality going on. Also blaming the current government for all the past government's poor ability to upgrade the railway network.

I absolutely agree with the core message. But I want to straighten out some small things.

The reason Melbourne has so many LXs is due to the mostly flat terrain. It is a big deal to build a bridge or tunnel when a LX used to suffice. Sydney is more hilly, so elevated and underground structures were more common, and would naturally result in fewer LXs. Nowadays we know an LX is bad business, which is why VicRoads now has a policy of not creating new LXs. On this see Aylmer Rd next to Lynbrook station and the closure of the Evans Rd LX in 2005.

The LXRP, if it continues, will have its work cut out for it. When the current 78 are finally removed, there will still be 18 on the Upfield line, 27 on the Clifton Hill group, and 11 on both the Frankston and Sandringham lines. All up, there will still be about 100 LX on the Metro network, with dozens more to Melton and Baxter.

On the Hurstbridge and Cranbourne duplication, they were first mentioned in the 2012 Network Development plan, but as we know the Napthine administration did f-- all. Airport rail was also mentioned here, but at that point we'd waited 3 decades, so whats another 3 decades more.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_Development_Plan_Metropolitan_Rail

The Andrews government has done a lot of good things, but is being shat on for things either out of its hands or not even relevant. There are things I wish were done, like a wholesale timetable upgrade, but there has been a lot of forwards progress that has and will continue to benefit Melbourne, if not the state.

If anything, Andrews is now best mates with Scotty from upstairs. Morrison was there when Andrews announced the alignment for Airport Rail, and even through these past few months, Andrews has not taken the easy political shots at Morrison. Morrison has put more money into Victoria than either of his predecessors, and that has a lot to do with the relationship between Andrews and Morrison. I despise Morrison but Andrews has kept his hands fairly clean, resulting in a good working relationship between state and federal governments that we have not seen for quite some time.

Wow, can't believe there is this Sydney vs Melbourne mentality going on. Also blaming the current government for all the past government's poor ability to upgrade the railway network.

It was one simple and accurate comparison and it is not degenerating into a Sydney vs Melbourne fiasco. You're trying to make it one by telling us all what Sydney has and hasn't done etc, none of which is relevant to the Melbourne Airport Railway. I hope our posters ignore your bait.

You're right, I poorly worded out my post. To be more on topic, I meant people are comparing the Sydney's second airport rail link with Melbourne's airport rail link and saying it's not a fair comparison, since Sydney's western rail corridor was set in stone much earlier than Melbourne's rail link to the airport.

Level crossings are on their way out, probably take a good couple of decades to get rid of most of the major ones. Although a great deal of them lie within the Northern lines. Most of the ones in the South East have been sorted out.

And politically there is a delay between the major projects happening in Syd/Melb. The political cycles make a huge difference. I think you can see it when you see a chart of all the major projects.

Anyways sorry about my thought bubble being completely off-topic. That was the intention of the post. Thanks
^-^

Why is it Andrews fault? Because he does not want to be held over a barrel by some BS consortium who wants to gouge the merry hell out of Victoria, whilst expecting the State and Federal Governments to stump up most of the cash? For an Airport link?

Its good that Andrews has stuck to his guns. If it were up to me, apart from improving local bus routes and extending and rerouting tram 59, I would do nothing else.

Michael

Michael I am non partisan and still believe the wheels turn far too slowly in Victoria to take up opportunities for funding from the feds.  We are not talking about a BS consortium (although Andrew's seems to think this is acceptable for road projects like the WGT and let's not forget the PPP for SCS) as the funding for the airport line is not the tunnel (IIRC) the consortium is offering the government a capital deferred approach to the project.

There is nothing wrong with going more directly to the airport which does not in ANY WAY preclude the government from running some services from Sunshine or Broadmeadows.

Further Jeff Kennett really screwed the state when the Feds offered Victoria 50% of the total cost to build the airport link in the 1990's.  He also refused to take the money and instead wrote the contract with Transurban and ensured in doing so the Cormick Foundation took an equity position in Transurban.

It’ll be 10 years before airline passenger levels reach those of pre-COVID-19. They might get back up to 80% fairly quickly but the last 20% will be a grind. People won’t have the money for leisure, reduced demand for business travel as businesses realise the potential of video-conferencing to replace some travel, fears about the lack of social distancing inside planes, allowing tourists from the US or China into the country, a major Australian airline with $7 billion of debt, etc. The justification for the airport line is based on projected demand in the 2030s. You can now make that the 2040s.

PS:
1. Badgerys Creek will probably be a 10-year white elephant, but it’s a shovel-ready project and, consequently, part of the COVID-19 economic recovery.
2. Sydney, Brisbane and Perth airports are 10 km or less from the CBD, as the crow flies. Melbourne is 18 km.

Why is it Andrews fault? Because he does not want to be held over a barrel by some BS consortium who wants to gouge the merry hell out of Victoria, whilst expecting the State and Federal Governments to stump up most of the cash? For an Airport link?

Its good that Andrews has stuck to his guns. If it were up to me, apart from improving local bus routes and extending and rerouting tram 59, I would do nothing else.

Michael

Michael I am non partisan and still believe the wheels turn far too slowly in Victoria to take up opportunities for funding from the feds.  We are not talking about a BS consortium (although Andrew's seems to think this is acceptable for road projects like the WGT and let's not forget the PPP for SCS) as the funding for the airport line is not the tunnel (IIRC) the consortium is offering the government a capital deferred approach to the project.

There is nothing wrong with going more directly to the airport which does not in ANY WAY preclude the government from running some services from Sunshine or Broadmeadows.

Further Jeff Kennett really screwed the state when the Feds offered Victoria 50% of the total cost to build the airport link in the 1990's.  He also refused to take the money and instead wrote the contract with Transurban and sensured in doing so the Cormick Foundation took an equity position in Transurban.

Not accusing you of being partisan. as regards to Road projects being subject to favorable treatment, Andrews is not the first and certainly not the last premier to do so. It is a Victorian Disease. However what Andrews has done is pour much needed expenditure into rectifying an ageing and crumbling commuter network, and this takes time.

A direct route to the airport via Highpoint would have to be tunnelled and would cost more than the 8 - 13 billion for the Sunshine route. If the airport link takes the form of heavy rail, then it should be a through route, either north to Bendigo, Shepparton and Albury or via the Melbourne Metro tunnel through to Cranbourne and Pakenham. That is what Syndey and Brisbane has done.

In no way should they be spending a huge amount of coin on a High Speed heavy rail dedicated link from the CBD to the airport. Not when so many suburbs in Melbourne do not even have decent bus services, let alone rail. For a dedicated link upgrade and remodel and extend Tram Route 59.


Michael

A direct route to the airport via Highpoint would have to be tunnelled and would cost more than the 8 - 13 billion for the Sunshine route. If the airport link takes the form of heavy rail, then it should be a through route, either north to Bendigo, Shepparton and Albury or via the Melbourne Metro tunnel through to Cranbourne and Pakenham. That is what Syndey and Brisbane has done.

In no way should they be spending a huge amount of coin on a High Speed heavy rail dedicated link from the CBD to the airport. Not when so many suburbs in Melbourne do not even have decent bus services, let alone rail. For a dedicated link upgrade and remodel and extend Tram Route 59.


Michael

Oh do pay attention Michael,

It has been said ad infinitum by Dan, that the Airport train will be a through route. It is called SRL.

Broadmeadows clockwise or MM1/Dandy, Wyndham Vale anti-clock ; effectively killing the Bendigo and Albury dreams.

cheers
John

A direct route to the airport via Highpoint would have to be tunnelled and would cost more than the 8 - 13 billion for the Sunshine route. If the airport link takes the form of heavy rail, then it should be a through route, either north to Bendigo, Shepparton and Albury or via the Melbourne Metro tunnel through to Cranbourne and Pakenham. That is what Syndey and Brisbane has done.

I am not personally adverse to the line continuing to linking into the Bendigo line or otherwise as long as it is electrified and therefore we are running clean services.

Therefore if you did this and remembering the airport line traffic would be paired between the Airport and Melbourne mostly then having extra traffic via the airport would take up valuable seating for the airport customers.

I still see issues for airport line commuters coming from the north (Seymour) how will they connect to the airport line?

I still see issues for airport line commuters coming from the north (Seymour) how will they connect to the airport line?

At BROADMEADOWS

cheers
John