The Ballarat City Council has raised concerns/alarm at the Victorian State Government’s plan to remove the Ballarat to Melbourne rail freight line as part of the Sunshine Station redevelopment.
This move will restrict the effectiveness of the Ballarat West Employment Zone’s Intermodal Freight Hub which was intended to provide the Freight and Logistics tenant with access to road, rail and eventually air transport options.
The removal will require trains to travel via Geelong adding an extra 50km each way and increasing the costs of transport which will have a negative effect on train freight and possibly increase truck numbers travelling into the Port of Melbourne creating further congestion.
The removal of the Ballarat – Melbourne Freight Line should be of great concern to all communities along the Murray Basin Rail Link, given the most efficient route to move freight from Mildura to Melbourne is via Maryborough and Ballarat, not the current Ararat Geelong diversion.
Farmers and Industry require fast efficient transport to compete on world markets, even more so in today’s unstable economic environment. The Ballarat Melbourne route should remain in its present form with the hope of an eventual standardization of the line from Maryborough to Melbourne when we have a government in Victoria that has the foresight to cater for the highly productive Rural and Regional areas and the desire to build fast efficient world class transport systems.
Currently the State is pouring Billions in cash into over priced city rail projects which they then heavily subsidise to maintain the vote of their metro supporters. In the meantime Country freight lines struggle with ancient components carrying goods from highly productive communities.
As a community, it is my belief that we should be in full support of the Ballarat City Council and stand with them in their effort to retain this very important freight link. If it is removed we will never get it back and we will be left with the third world rail infrastructure we now have.
We need to send the Melbourne centered Labor Government a strong message supporting the sensible and practical concerns of the Ballarat Council and all the communities along our rail line that depend on fast efficient rail freight services.
We are actually part of Victoria too.
I thought the libs hated rail, the ALP have taken it to a whole new level. Not only ae they incompetent, they are driving investment away from Victoria.