Frustrated commuters call on government to ‘urgently’ duplicate and extend Cranbourne railway line
Cranbourne is officially Melbourne’s worst-performing train line, with long-suffering commuters plagued by constant delays, cancellations and disruptions. This is the one thing that would fix it.
South East
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Frustrated commuters on Melbourne’s worst-performing train line are calling on the state government to “urgently fix” the problem.
Just 86.5 per cent of Cranbourne line trains arrived on time in 2018, and only 85.3 per cent so far this year, against a network-wide average of 98.5 per cent.
Long-suffering users say the problem-plagued line desperately needs to be duplicated, and extended to Clyde to stop the constant delays, cancellations and disruptions.
One angry train user showed the Cranbourne Leader a personal log of delays he has kept since 2016, documenting more than 200 disruptions.
“Initially I wanted to keep the log so I could take it to our local MP to discuss and ask what are they doing about it. It (the log) gives an indication what life is like using such a poor train system,” the Cranbourne man, who didn’t want to be named, said.
“If our train is a few minutes delayed in the afternoon from Glenferrie we miss our connecting Cranbourne train from Richmond, that also means I miss my bus from Merinda Park.”
The Cranbourne Leader visited the station last week and spoke with dozens of commuters.
Mark Rogers said the line needed duplication of the 8km of single track between Dandenong and Cranbourne.
“This will remove the bottlenecks that cause delays,” Mr Rogers said.
James Asgarda said he was frustrated by constant delays.
“I expect my train to leave on time and get to my destination on time, every day. Why is that so hard? I do my part, pay and touch-on and get to the train station in time,” Mr Asgarda said.
Meena Thorat said she was arriving more than two hours late to work due to disruptions.
“I’m running to work late and the platforms are so crowded — it’s just a lot of hassle,” Ms Thorat said.
Mark Rogers said the line needed duplication of the 8km of single track between Dandenong and Cranbourne.
“This will remove the bottlenecks that cause delays,” Mr Rogers said.
James Asgarda said he was frustrated by constant delays.
“I expect my train to leave on time and get to my destination on time, every day. Why is that so hard? I do my part, pay and touch-on and get to the train station in time,” Mr Asgarda said.
Meena Thorat said she was arriving more than two hours late to work due to disruptions.
“I’m running to work late and the platforms are so crowded — it’s just a lot of hassle,” Ms Thorat said.
Barry Gibbins said the station’s carpark was atrocious.
“I’ve parked all the way out at the shopping centre today because it fills up so quickly — there desperately needs to be more all-day parking around the station,” Mr Gibbins said.
Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said the track needed to be duplicated to ease congestion.
“This is the key issue that is limiting the number of trains that can run, which leads to long waits between services and disruptions very quickly snowball causing Metro to sometimes terminate trains early without running all the way down to Cranbourne,” Mr Bowen said.
Since 2015, the Leader been fighting for the train line to be extended through its ‘Put Clyde Back on Track’ campaign.
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Late last year, Labor pledged to remove the last four level crossings along the line, and duplicate the track between Dandenong and Cranbourne, to allow for doubling the number of trains during peak times and deliver services every 10 minutes.
But Premier Daniel Andrews stopped short of guaranteeing cash to extend the line to Clyde.
Public Transport Minister spokesman Joel Dwyer said the State Government understood how important extending the rail line to Clyde was for the community.
“That’s why we’re getting on with the vital planning work needed to make this a reality,” Mr Dwyer said.
“We’re also undertaking a massive upgrade of the Cranbourne Line, including removing level crossings and delivering a full duplication of track between Dandenong and Cranbourne.”
He said it was unfortunate disruptions were occurring on the network, but duplicating the line would reduce delays and allow trains to run every ten minutes to the city in peak hour.
Metro spokesman Andrew Nelson said the authority was running “more services on the Cranbourne line than ever before” to get passengers where they need to go.
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“We understand how frustrating disruptions can be — that’s why our priority is minimising delays to passengers, and deploying replacement buses as needed to keep people moving,” Mr Nelson said.
“Signalling and upgrade works as part of the Metro Tunnel will result in more reliable journeys on the Cranbourne line and pave the way for turn up and go services.”