Rowville rail line documentary aims to get issue back on agenda before the State Election

A NEW documentary explores the 40-year fight to make Rowville Rail a reality.

Campaigner Mick Van de Vreede and filmmaker Shing Hei Ho, who hopes his documentary will put Rowville rail back on the agenda ahead of next year’s State Election. Picture: Steve Tanner

“THE next train departing the city is the 2030 Rowville line stopping all stations”.

It’s an announcement commuters can only dream of hearing, but a new documentary explores the 40-year fight to make Rowville Rail a reality.

Wantirna South filmmaker Shing Hei Ho hopes his film No Pain No Train will put the project back on the agenda ahead of next year’s State Election.

Commuters have been waiting 40 years for the line proposed to extend from Huntingdale station, with stops at Monash University, Mulgrave, Waverley Park and Rowville.

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A student at the Victorian College of the Arts, Ho, 24, filmed the documentary over three days last September and interviewed Greens MP Samantha Dunn, Rowville state Liberal MP Kim Wells, former Knox councillor Mick Van de Vreede, Monash University’s Paul Barton, independent transport consultant William McDougall, and frustrated commuters.

The film won first prize in the open section at Knox Council’s Green Foot Flicks Knox Youth film festival.

In the documentary, Mr Barton said having a train line to the uni was “absolutely imperative” and could transport thousands of students, when buses only take hundreds.

He said the university was forced to turn a rugby oval into a carpark to accommodate demand.

Mr McDougall, who led a 2012 feasibility study into the line, said it was possible to build it.

Mr Van de Vreede has been campaigning for Rowville rail for 26 years and told Leader he believed it would be built one day.

“It’s not a matter of if, it’s a matter of when,” Mr Van de Vreede said.

“The planets have to be aligned politcially...I believe we’re reliant on (Mr) Wells and his party if they come to government, we’re really reliant on them to deliver this, and I personally believe (he) is behind it.”

Mr Wells told Leader his party wanted to ensure land was reserved for the project.

“In 2010 we promised we would do feasibility and planning (for the project), and we’ve done that,” Mr Wells said.

“The next stage is land reservation and we’re wanting to make sure that is part of our election commitment running into 2018.”

He said the land needed for the line was owned by different State Government departments.

At a recent Knox Council meeting Cr Peter Lockwood moved that the council write to state politicians advocating for the preservation of the Rowville rail reservation.

The council has ranked Rowville Rail as its top transport infrastructure project, in a list it will give to the State Government.

State Government spokesman Jordy Jeffrey-Bailey said the Rowville rail line could not be built without creating room in the city loop to run more trains, but the government was doing this by building the Metro Tunnel.