Tuesday, 30 April 2024

 Wendy LOVELL (Northern Victoria) (13:03): (805) My constituency question is for the Minister for Transport Infrastructure, and it is regarding the Shepparton train line. Minister, when will the full nine weekday return services start running, and will you provide additional carriages on existing services as an interim measure to ease unacceptable overcrowding? In 2021 the now Premier said that stage 3 of the Shepparton line upgrade would be completed in 2023, allowing trains to travel faster and increasing frequency to nine weekday return services. The government missed that deadline, only finishing track works in April 2024. However, the signalling upgrades are still not complete, we still do not have nine services and trains are chronically congested. A constituent reported that on Thursday 18 April congestion was appalling on the 2:36 pm train from Melbourne to Shepparton, with many people standing in the aisles and entrances because the train had only two carriages. Other commuters have confirmed that it is like this every week. Standing may be tolerable for a short inner-city tram ride, but not on a train that spends almost 3 hours travelling into the country.