The secret rail plan to tackle ‘crush’ hour in Melbourne’s north and west

A secret government report warns passengers will face “crush” conditions at train stations across Melbourne’s fast-growing northern and western suburbs without an urgent overhaul of the rail system.

The ambitious blueprint, which supports electrification of the Melton and Wyndham lines and extending the Upfield line, forecasts that without any action within the next five to 10 years, dozens of commuters will be left stranded on platforms every time a train comes.

But the plan – which was the catalyst for the state and federal governments’ $4 billion revamp of Sunshine Station – poses financial and political challenges for the cash-strapped Allan government.

Commuters wait on the platform during the morning peak hour at Tarneit train station in Melbourne’s west.Credit: Joe Armao

The price tag for the works is estimated to be comparable to the $34.5 billion first stage of the Suburban Rail Loop (SRL). The report also refers to a proposal that would require people travelling from Ballarat to switch trains to go to the city.

It raises sensitive political choices for a government committed to the SRL and wary of upsetting regional Victoria, but also under pressure to deliver on plans for the west first proposed in 2018.

The urgency of the plan, which seeks to make public transport in Melbourne’s west and north comparable to services long-enjoyed by commuters in more established parts of the city, is revealed in a letter written by Victoria’s most senior transport bureaucrat and obtained by this masthead under freedom of information laws.

Sunshine Station will be extensively redeveloped to enable more rail services to the western suburbs and Melbourne Airport. Credit: Jason South

“The report’s key finding is that due to significant population growth in the north and west of Melbourne – more than twice the population of Canberra is forecast to move into this region in the next 15 years – there is an urgent need to begin detailed development of rail capacity-boosting projects in the north and west,” then Department of Transport secretary Paul Younis wrote in a letter to his Commonwealth counterpart a year ago.

While the Albanese and Allan governments refused to release the plan to this masthead under freedom of information laws, a dozen industry and government sources, including some of the document’s contributing authors, confirmed its existence.

The document, titled the North West Strategic Assessment, was developed by a team of about 30 public transport and systems experts led by Victoria’s Department of Transport.

The North West Strategic Assessment broadened the scope of planning underway to deal with growth areas in the Hume and Whittlesea local government areas in the city’s north, including Craigieburn, Donnybrook and Beveridge – former satellite towns experiencing massive population growth and inadequately serviced by public transport.

The Sunshine Station “superhub” emerged as the most pressing first piece of enabling infrastructure across the west, with two new platforms, the extension of high-capacity signalling and vertical separation of metro, country and freight services to ease an existing capacity bottleneck.

The Victorian government brought forward $2 billion in Airport Rail funding for the Sunshine upgrade, and the Commonwealth added $2 billion to its $5 billion Airport Rail commitment.

“The investment from the state and federal government wouldn’t have gone ahead without that piece of work,” a government source said, referencing the North West Strategic Assessment.

When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese announced his government’s commitment to the Sunshine project during this year’s federal election campaign, he hinted at a broader, “transformative” project. He said the money would begin work to enable the electrification of the Melton line, a project long-advocated for in Melbourne’s west but conspicuously absent from government budget commitments.

The latest federal budget included $20.5 million for a planning project to provide a faster, high-capacity rail network in Melbourne’s west and $7.05 million for a similar project to boost services on the Craigieburn, Upfield lines and northern growth corridor.

A spokesperson for federal Transport Minister Catherine King said the Commonwealth was working with Victoria on a “credible and sustainable pipeline of projects”.

“Both planning projects build on previous work we have delivered with Victoria, and will deliver business cases to develop and prioritise options for upgrades to Melbourne’s northern and western metropolitan railway lines,” they said.

Other proposals canvassed in the report include electrifying all services to Bacchus Marsh, and running a more frequent “shuttle service” between Ballarat and Bacchus Marsh, where commuters could transfer trains to access the metropolitan network including city-bound and airport services.

The demand for greater frequency of services in Melbourne’s west is underscored by Victorian Department of Transport data showing that between 2019 and 2024, passenger numbers at eight stations on the Melton and Wyndham Vale lines – which currently carry diesel-powered V-Line trains – surged by 26 per cent.

Over the same period, the disruption of the pandemic and increased working from home saw patronage on the rest of the Metro Trains network fall by 25 per cent.

Modelling contained within the assessment shows that by the early to mid-2030s, stations such as Melton and Tarneit will be assigned the colour-code black during peak hour. This is the code used to signify “crush”, where there isn’t enough capacity for everyone waiting on a platform to squeeze onto a train.

This is forecast to happen even after the V/Line Velocity trains on the Melton lines are extended from six carriages to nine in 2028. “Crush” is already looming at stations like Tarneit, where local Facebook groups routinely discuss overcrowding on V/Line trains.

A new station is due to be opened in Tarneit West before next year’s state election, but will in turn place extra pressure on existing train services.

In the city’s rapidly expanding north, the North West Strategic Assessment supports preserving the option of duplicating and extending the Upfield line and dovetailing it with an extended Craigieburn line, with a new terminus station in Wallan, about 60 kilometres from Melbourne’s CBD.

The Upfield and Craigieburn lines would be joined by using a dormant freight link between Somerton and Roxburgh Park.

This masthead has traced the origin of the government rail plans for Melbourne’s north and west to March 2024, when Danny Pearson, who was Victoria’s then-minister for transport infrastructure, wrote to his federal counterpart Catherine King asking to fund a new major project study from a pool of $102 million.

“I would like to propose that our two governments prioritise network planning and business case development for rail upgrades to support Melbourne’s growing north and west,” Pearson told King in a series of emails released under freedom of information.

“This planning will build off jointly funded development work undertaken to date through (redacted) and the Western Rail Plan. This new work will seek to define the optimal sequencing and network integration of upgrades in this part of the network, including for MAR [Melbourne Airport Rail].

In July 2024, the state provided the North West Strategic Assessment to the Commonwealth.

Former Department of Transport secretary Younis, in separate correspondence with Canberra’s transport secretary Jim Betts, noted that their bosses were in discussions about “rail network planning”, including the long-envisioned Airport Rail project.

Some state Labor MPs are aware of parts of the plan, but most have not seen the full document. Two MPs, speaking anonymously to freely discuss internal matters, say they had received advice that Melton needed to be done before Wyndham Vale in terms of staging.

State and federal parliamentarians who represent increasingly marginal electorates in Melbourne’s west and north will be eager to learn more of the secret rail plan, which will increase pressure on Premier Jacinta Allan’s 11-year Labor government to address the city’s east-west public transport imbalance.

Public Transport Users Association spokesman Daniel Bowen said V/Line trains were being overwhelmed by demand in Melbourne’s growth suburbs, with poor frequency adding to crowding.

“They’ve added more services, but ultimately, V/Line is a regional rail operator. It would make a lot of sense to extend Metro out to Melton and provide that level of service,” he said.

“You’d really want every 20 minutes all day, at the very least. That’s what the rest of Melbourne gets, even Geelong gets that now.”

The state government did not directly respond to questions about the plan, but pointed to “significant development” work in Melbourne’s west including the Sunshine upgrade and its capacity to enable Airport Rail and the electrified Melton and Wyndham Vale lines.

“Whether it’s making the Werribee Line and Melton level crossing free, putting more services on the Craigieburn, Upfield and Werribee lines or opening the West Gate and Metro Tunnel later this year – we are reducing congestion, helping busy families get home sooner, while connecting them to jobs and services,” a spokesperson said.

“We are getting on with rebuilding Sunshine Station, which is the first step of Melbourne Airport Rail and Melton electrification - which will help to unlock capacity for more services across Melbourne’s west now and into the future.”

Opposition public transport spokesman Matthew Guy said the need in Melbourne’s growth corridors was urgent and should be at the top of the state’s transport priorities.

“The Suburban Rail Loop is a nice to have, but electrifying to Wallan, Melton and Wyndham Vale is a must-have,” he said.

“The middle eastern suburbs of Melbourne are growing, but growing nowhere near as fast as the north and the west of Melbourne.”

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