The 2018/2019 Victorian Budget will provide $572 million to deliver further upgrades to Melbourne’s busiest rail corridor with passengers on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury lines having more comfortable and reliable trains, more often.
The project will deliver power upgrades, and modern signalling from the city to Cranbourne and Pakenham, paving the way for the CranbourneLine duplication, and undertaking detailed design work to enable new high-capacity metro trains to run to Sunbury.
Victorian Minister for Public Transport, Jacinta Allan, said, “We’re building the Metro Tunnel, delivering longer trains and getting rid of 17 dangerous and congested level crossings to deliver a new Sunbury to Cranbourne/Pakenham rail corridor.”
Together with the Metro Tunnel, and new high-capacity trains, the works will transform Melbourne’s busiest train lines, delivering more services, better reliability and room for an additional 234,000 peak passengers every week from Sunbury, Cranbourne and Pakenham.
The existing project to remove the level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong has included the delivery of upgraded power, new track, longer platforms and modernised signalling.
The new project will expand these upgrades along the entire corridor to ensure new, high-capacity trains can reliably run all the way from Cranbourne and Pakenham to Sunbury – linked through the CBD by the Metro Tunnel.
Works will also include planning for the future duplication of the Cranbourne Line and associated works at the Dandenong and Caulfield junctions.
The Victorian Government has invested more than $15 billion on projects that will improve train services on the Cranbourne, Pakenham and Sunbury lines, including the Metro Tunnel, 65 new longer trains and 17 level crossing removals that will enable more trains to run without clogging up the road network.
