Port of Melbourne<\/a>, with the RFA concerned their removal would lead to increased congestion and delays in travel time for rail freight to the port.<\/p>\n\n\n\nThe delays could lead to increased costs for freight movement, and potentially encourage greater use of road transport for freight, having a negative impact on road safety, road longevity, amenity and emissions. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Horsham Rural City Council agreed at last week\u2019s meeting to write to relevant ministers and politicians asking them to retain the crossovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Cameron McDonald, Horsham\u2019s delegate to the RFA, said the current arrangement worked well and did not need changing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWhat the Rail Freight Alliance is pointing out is that if the State Government does stupidly really remove the rail crossovers, it\u2019s going to create extra cost, time and distance for most rail freight trains, and it will add to congestion on the actual lines,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis is just the beginning really, of a whole range of issues \u2013 but this is a doozy \u2013 and it hasn\u2019t actually been thought-out very well at all by the State Government. We need to get as much freight off roads and onto trains as we possibly can. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThis more efficient movement of trains throughout the state is going to be red hot on the agenda.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At last week\u2019s Yarriambiack Shire Council meeting, councillors passed a motion to write to all Victorian MPs, including Premier Jacinta Allan, to raise their concerns regarding the removal of the Sunshine regional rail link crossovers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Karly Kirk said rail freight would primarily be diverted onto the Geelong-Werribee line, adding 47 kilometres for rail travel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOn the surface, it doesn\u2019t seem very much, but in train terms, it\u2019s additional time, staffing, fuel, all the things that make the train run,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe removal of these crossovers would have a detrimental impact on rail freight in Victoria, increasing rail costs and driving more freight to road.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Kirk said a fit-for-purpose system was needed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBy 2050, the freight task is predicted to triple, and by 2030, Melbourne is forecast to be the biggest city in Australia,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe challenge of moving this freight throughout Victoria, whilst keeping people safe, keeping within designated emissions and providing a liveable state, will be a challenge over the next decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cHigh-productivity freight vehicles in Victoria are predicted to increase \u2013 Victoria needs a fit-for-purpose rail freight system. An efficient rail system with complementary infrastructure is vital for Victoria and Australia\u2019s economic prosperity.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Cr Corinne Heintze said the superhub seemed contradictory to the government\u2019s freight plan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cLast year, the state came up with a five-year freight plan, from the years 2025-30, called Victoria Delivers, which sets out clear priorities for growth in rail freight, which will lead to improved road safety and less congestion,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cBut at the same time, the state wishes to remove the regional line crossovers. This is quite contradictory to what the 2025-30 freight plan is aiming to achieve.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Works are expected to begin this year and be completed in 2030.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Wimmera councils will join an advocacy campaign to retain two regional rail link crossovers \u2013 key to Victoria\u2019s rail-freight network \u2013 at Sunshine station.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":363954,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[17733,12102,47],"tags":[993,9608,11593,8],"class_list":["post-363953","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-marl","category-port-of-melbourne","category-rail-news","tag-melbourne","tag-rail-freight-alliance","tag-sunshine-railway-station","tag-victoria"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363953","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=363953"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363953\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":363958,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/363953\/revisions\/363958"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/363954"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=363953"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=363953"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.vibewire.com.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=363953"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}