Murray Basin Rail Project: Mildura Council concerned with delays

It was meant to improve the rail network and get trucks off the road, but the Murray Basin Rail Project still isn’t complete, four years after it was promised.

Mildura Council has decided to hold off on writing to the state government expressing concern over the progress of the Murray Basin Rail Project, which was meant to be finished four years ago.

The council withdrew the motion stating that there would be a report on the project coming through to them within the next month and that it should wait to see what was detailed in that report before expressing its concern.

The project aims to improve the Murray Basin rail network for freight services, allowing freight trains to travel faster and on more direct routes around the Murray Darling Basin area.

The five-stage project was announced in 2015 and was meant to be complete in 2018, but it’s still only in the second stage.

The project was heralded as supporting freight mode shift from road to rail, removing around 20,000 truck trips from our roads and improving safety for Victorian communities.

In his draft letter to Premier Daniel Andrews which will now be held until the council recieve the latest report on the project, Mayor Liam Wood said: “Mildura Rural City Council Community is extremely concerned with the status of the Murray Basin Rail Project” and that the project has “fallen far short of its original promise”.

“This project will reduce emissions and congestion, increase community amenity, and reduce living cost for all Victorians as fuel prices increase,” he wrote.

“The project will also increase road safety, reduce wear of road surfaces as well as ensure the availability of large scale freight movements while lowering road freight movements on the Melbourne metro road network.”

Stage 2 of the project includes converting to standard gauge and upgrade works; Mildura to Dunolly, Murrayville to Ouyen, Maryborough to Ararat.

The entire rail needs to run on what is called a standard gauge, meaning that it would be possible for all trains to use all the tracks, taking away the need for trains to take large detours or having areas be completely isolated from rail access.

Currently freight trains from Merbein are travelling an extra 130km via Ararat to get to Geelong and Melbourne.

Due to the status of the project the region’s freight capacity has decreased making the region increasingly reliant on high productivity freight vehicles.

Transit times by rail have increased and rail freight has been lost to road.