The Victorian Government has told travellers to book seats before travelling in response to state Member for Northern Victoria Wendy Lovell’s call for more carriages for crowded Shepparton services amid ongoing upgrade delays.
Passenger reports said trains from Melbourne to Shepparton regularly ran only two carriages and suffered from severe overcrowding.
Ms Lovell called for more carriages to accommodate passengers while the nine weekday return services promised in stage three of the Shepparton line upgrade remained undelivered.
“The government must provide additional carriages on existing services as an interim measure to ease this unacceptable crowding,” Ms Lovell said.
“Standing may be tolerable on a short inner-city tram ride, but not on a train that spends almost three hours travelling into the country.”
Ms Lovell questioned the transport minister about the undelivered nine weekday return services scheduled as part of stage three for completion in 2023.
“The Labor Government needs to come clean on when, if ever, the full nine weekday return services will start running between Shepparton and Melbourne,” Ms Lovell said.
When contacted by The News, the government stated the most popular VLocity services were scheduled to run as six-carriage trains and encouraged passengers to book tickets in advance to ensure a seat.
The government said track upgrades on stage three of the Shepparton line were complete and stated that signalling design work would continue, allowing more trains to run on the line when completed.
It did not provide a start date for the nine weekday returns.
“The regional fare cap has transformed the way people travel around the state, and we’re delivering more services and rolling out more trains than ever before to support the demand,” a government spokesperson said.
“We won’t take lectures from the Liberal Party on delivering the rail infrastructure regional Victorians need — Victorians will remember they closed regional rail lines and cut V/Line services last time they were in power.”