this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2023
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Melbourne Trains
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♥️ thank you peeler!
I agree with most of what you said. I'm not sure Hamilton would be a very viable service, but Mildura, Koo Wee Rup, and Horsham I think would all be very useful services that should be brought back. Portland I'm on the fence about, I think an extension from the Warrnambool/Port fairy line would be more useful and better utilised than the Ararat to Portland, but if Ararat-Portland reopened then Hamilton would make sense to reopen with the line.
But yeah it is a shame that all of them were closed. I find it especially a shame that the buildings are rarely ever kept, and even more rarely kept in decent nick. I only really post the ones I've visited that still have stuff, but I've been to most of the stations in the west that were on the '47 VR map, and it's generally lucky if there's even a mound left. Most of the ones in the west still have silos, but that's about it
Hamilton is still in good nick!
Morkalla less so...
@Baku @PeelerSheila Koo Wee Rup is a no-brainer. There's now continuous housing estates all the way out to Pakenham (which is just north of there), as well as our past Cranbourne and Casey Fields as far as Clyde.
Unfortunately, I think it's just a matter of time before Koo Wee Rup is considered an outer suburb of Melbourne. I wouldn't at all be surprised if forward-thinking developers and speculators have begun snapping up the farmland around that town.
Portland is a natural deep-water port, which is why the aluminium smelter was built there. It was also an important container port for grain. I think a reasonable case could be made to reopen the line to Ararat for freight, with some limited passenger services.
Ideally, the Warrnambool line should also be extended to Portland, via Port Fairy.
I believe ART-PTL is still used by the occasional freighter, but I actually think it would be a good line to run mixed trains on. I don't really understand why we didn't keep mixed trains. A couple of passenger cars tacked onto the front of a freight train could work decently well on some now freight only lines. I'm sure the freight companies wouldn't be particularly happy, but since we own the tracks, it still feels like a worthwhile tradeoff for them
@Baku Another limiting factor for Portland and Horsham trains is that they're both on standard gauge lines. Meanwhile, the train line through Ballarat (from Southern Cross to Ararat) is broad gauge.
So any passenger train services to those cities would either need to travel along the standard gauge line from Ararat to Geelong (quite a detour), or passengers would need to change trains at Ararat (a pain).
Converting the train line through Ballarat to standard- or dual-gauge would make train services to Western Victoria a lot more viable.
You could run a single-seat standard gauge passenger services to Horsham (or beyond), and Portland via Ballarat.
An added bonus is that it would also mean a faster Overland service to Adelaide.
Convert the Maryborough line to dual gauge at the same time, and suddenly a Mildura via Maryborough and Ballarat standard gauge passenger service becomes viable too.