William Tieppo has been appointed as Chief Executive Officer of V/Line following an extensive recruitment process.
Mr Tieppo brings more than two decades of transport sector experience to the role, including the Victorian Department of Transport and Planning’s Deputy Secretary for Network Development and his most recent role as Deputy Secretary for Network Design and Integration.
During this time, Mr Tieppo successfully led the procurement of Victoria’s largest ever rollingstock investment, managed the development and delivery of Victoria’s freight and road safety plans, and oversaw the readiness and operations of major infrastructure projects.
How could anyone in Victoria think this has been a good job. Buying diesel railcars for the V/Line network for suburban and long haul routes as a single unit without onboard services has been an insult to passengers and a source of stress for the many onboard workers who have received the wrath of upset passengers crammed into a sardine can to Warrnambool and Bairnsdale.
This guy has overseen the huge delay in the delivery of freight rail projects across the state.
The choice of buying 100’s of diesel rail cars for Geelong, Ballarat and Suburban Services has lead to significant issues at Southern Cross in terms of air quality and produced significant costs to run and environmentally damaging carbon emissions.
Mr Tieppo lives in regional Victoria and previously worked at VicRoads as a Regional Director for South Western Victoria and Director of Regional Operations, in addition to executive positions at the City of Greater Geelong.
Mr Tieppo will commence as CEO on 25 August, leading a team of more than 2,700 employees delivering nearly 3,700 train and coach services to Victorians each week.
Mr Tieppo’s appointment comes at a time of significant growth in our regional train network following the delivery of Labor Government’s regional fare cap and investment in more train services across the V/Line network.
This includes the more than 90 services added to the V/Line timetable in 2024, including 88 new or extended weekend services on the Geelong line and a fourth weekend service on the Warrnambool line.
I guess we can make a small change look like a large one. The network is underfunded, poorly run and has poor rolling stock fit for the services it delivers.
Warwick Horsley will continue as Acting CEO until Mr Tieppo commences and has played a vital part in the continuing transformation of the regional rail network, with upgraded lines, better trains and more services.
What will the better trains be? Does this new guy even have a plan for decarbonisation and better rolling stock?
This guy was in charge of rolling stock we all know that has not worked. V/line to slide further into the mire.
Was this the best candidate the government could find? No of course not.
Is this why we do not have decent longer distance trains?
Extensive search and we get another government dud. How extensive could it have been across the lager rail companies across the globe. Maybe no one wants to clean up the mess although I doubt he will fix anything.
This New CEO that has a track record of reducing the rolling stock to not fit for purpose rail cars need to ride it all the way and back again no tax funded car, uncontrolled setting with other passengers on the longer routes and see for himself the damage the former CEO has done to the longer distance routes….
Being a former Vic Roads background person he has no rail operational background…..is he trying to make V/line into Metro Vic? Seems like it!
I doubt he knows what a train is and that they are various types of rolling stock available to be used for various purposes…..