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Trains will be running to Keilor East within five years, Premier Ben Carroll is promising, taking Victorians one step closer to a rail line all the way to Tullamarine airport.
The first new tracks from the city to Melbourne Airport will be laid from 2028 and a station built in Ben Carroll’s electorate by 2031, as the premier accelerates his preferred major project before November’s state election.
Carroll and Prime Minister Anthony Albanese will on Wednesday pledge to begin work on the second stage of the Melbourne Airport rail link, including 7.4 kilometres of track from Albion out to a new Keilor East station. Details of the announcement, which is a government commitment rather than an election pledge, have been provided toSite investigations and procurement will begin within weeks, with early designs and community consultation taking place next year.
Construction will begin in 2028 and finish by 2031, with a commitment to have trains taking passengers to and from Keilor East by this time. This promise has been made regardless of whether the final stage of the line – which connects directly to the airport – is completed.
A steering committee set up by the federal government is still negotiating how and when the Tullamarine connection will be delivered, raising the prospect that itDespite this, Carroll will on Wednesday insist that passengers will be boarding trains at Keilor East – within his marginal electorate of Niddrie – within five years.
“Melbourne needs a direct rail link to the airport, that’s why we’re getting on and delivering it,” Carroll said. “A new Keilor East station will give locals direct access to the city via the Metro Tunnel. ” The second stage of the project includes 7.4 kilometres of new track, much of it built alongside existing freight lines around Jacana. It will also require a 500-metre rail bridge across the Maribyrnong River.
An estimated 5200 passengers a day are expected to use the station at Keilor East. The airport rail line is expected to handle 6600 passengers every hour overall.
“We’re building Victoria’s future, unlocking capacity to run more trains, more often, and ensuring we have a train line to Melbourne Airport,” Albanese said in a statement. Before Wednesday’s announcement, Melbourne Airport Rail had a tentative completion date of 2033, but this was subject to significant uncertainty.as she progressed work on that stage of the project. She did not specify at the time when other sections of the project would be tendered or built.
Starting construction on the second stage in 2028 will affect Victoria’s budget forecasts, with net debt already tipped to hit $199.3 billion by 2030. This financial year, the state has budgeted $26.9 billion on capital works. The final cost of the airport rail project also remains uncertain. It was budgeted in 2022 at $11.5 billion, with an estimated ceiling of up to $13 billion.
Victoria has committed $5 billion and theHowever, the scope of the project has expanded significantly through the $4 billion program of works dubbed the Sunshine super hub. A rail connection to Melbourne Airport has been proposed since before the international gateway opened at Tullamarine in 1970. It gained new life in 2018 when then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull committed $5 billion to get the project under way, a funding commitment matched by Daniel Andrews at the time.
But it became a political quagmire in the 2020s, even though early works were under way and negotiations had started on contracts for major packages. In April 2023, the Allan government made the shock decision to push out the timeline on airport rail ahead of the state budget, blaming a stalemate with Melbourne Airport about whether to put their railway station below ground as well as a federal review of infrastructure spending.blindsided Carroll at the timeThe airport eventually agreed to an above-ground station in July 2024, and the Albanese government committed another $2 billion to the project to progress works on major upgrades to the rail corridor around Sunshine.
Considered the first stage of the airport link, this $4 billion project will untangle the rail network to create better separation between multiple V/Line and Metro lines. It also includes new stations at Albion and Tottenham, and sections of the project are already in the process of being built or tendered. The rest of the rail line, from Albion out to Keilor East and Tullamarine, has been in limbo since 2023.
In March last year, a steering committee was appointed to work with representatives from the Commonwealth, state government and Melbourne Airport to work out how to deliver the rail line and resolve any outstanding issues – including claims from the airport for compensation. In 2018, the private AirRail consortium proposed a dedicated train line between Southern Cross and Melbourne Airport.
But the Andrews government opted to build its own airport connection via Sunshine, with airport trains running through the CBD to the eastern suburbs via the Metro Tunnel. The airport rail business case projected that the Tullamarine Freeway would reach capacity by 2036 and become increasingly congested after that, with vehicle travel times set to double by 2056. Start the day with a summary of the day’s most important and interesting stories, analysis and insights.
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