The first passengers were hoped to be travelling on the $15 billion Metro Tunnel rail lines by this Sunday, but the state government has admitted it is yet to complete a train timetable.
On Saturday, The Age revealed a partial service would operate on the nine-kilometre underground tunnel in November, but peak-hour trains would not run until next year.
Two stations – Town Hall and State Library – are yet to be completed.
The Union has to have been sandbagging this job,m you drive past and never see anyone working on it. I dropped a fiend off near there today and it was all closed up and now activity.
Premier Jacinta Allan promised trains would be running in 2025, and in June last year, The Age reported builders were offered $143.5 million extra if they achieved “Day One Train Operations” – the first day passengers could use the tunnel – by Sunday, June 29, 2025.
We have been mislead once again by Jacinta Allan the princess of project overruns.
The offer was part of “additional payments” offered to the tunnel’s Cross Yarra partnership construction consortium worth up to $888 million to ensure the tunnel opened in 2025.
The tunnel will augment the City Loop and relieve congestion on train travel through the city. Sunbury and Dandenong trains, which currently go through the City Loop, will be diverted to the Metro Tunnel, stopping at five stations – Anzac (opposite the Shrine of Remembrance), Town Hall, State Library, Parkville and Arden (in North Melbourne).
I am not convinced the idea of running some trains via the City Loop and some via the Metro Tunnel is not a bad idea. Think it through. Some passengers will; not be interested in Parkville or Arden or Anzac but will still want to connect to Flagstaff and Parliament.
Labor frontbencher Steve Dimopoulos initially said on Saturday The Age’s report was wrong, before saying it was pre-emptive to say whether trains would run through the tunnel at peak times by the end of the year.
He said the project was actually “a year early”, as then-premier Daniel Andrews announced in 2015 that it would be completed at the end of 2026.
The Age