The Sunshine Station in western Melbourne will be expanded to add a new regional platform by 2029, as part of the station’s transformation into a transport superhub for the Melbourne Airport Rail Link.
The new regional platform will allow more regional services to stop, including Bendigo services, paving the way for the Western Rail Plan and complementing the Melbourne Airport Rail Link.
The plan to expand the Sunshine Station to act as a key connection point for the Victorian regions, Melbourne CBD and the airport was first announced mid last year, with the Victorian Department of Transport inviting public feedback on scope details and concept designs.
The new platform will add to previously announced Sunshine Station upgrades, including extending existing regional platforms to accommodate longer nine-car VLocity trains and a new, second concourse to make transfers easier between metro, regional and airport services.
The Sunshine Station project is part of the broader Melbourne Airport Rail Link project, which is being jointly funded by the Australian and Victorian Governments.
Construction is only months away from starting to make trains to Melbourne Airport a reality, with the project team preparing for utility relocations to start mid this year, subject to final approvals.
Melbourne Airport Rail Link will establish new offices at Sunshine Plaza, bringing around 340 team members closer to the project and hundreds of potential customers to local Sunshine businesses.
Victorian Minister for Transport Infrastructure, Jacinta Allan said the new platform was an investment in developing Sunshine as the centre of Melbourne’s booming west.
“Pre-COVID, over 40 per cent of the 20,000-plus daily regional trips made to and from Melbourne Airport came from Ballarat, Bendigo and Geelong,” Minister Allan said.
“This is why supporting development of Sunshine’s superhub and running airport services through the Metro Tunnel is so beneficial – it provides easy connections to these regions, to key city services and trips into the heart of the CBD in around 30 minutes.
Once Sunshine’s transformation into a transport superhub is complete, trains will run every two to three minutes at peak times, including airport services every ten minutes and an approximately 11-minute trip to Melbourne Airport.
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- Contractors sought for early works on Melbourne Airport Rail Link