Sunshine Station to become transport superhub for Melbourne Airport Rail

concept design for Sunshine station, subject to planning approvals. Image courtesy of Victoria’s Big Build.

New concept designs unveiled by the Victoria Department of Transport show how key areas along the Melbourne Airport Rail route might look, including upgrades to support Sunshine Station’s development into a transport superhub.

The transport superhub at Sunshine Station will provide Melbourne Airport Rail passengers with easy connections to Victoria’s regions and metropolitan areas, with a trip to Melbourne Airport from Sunshine expected to take 11 minutes.

As part of the new concept design, the Sunshine Station will nearly double in size with a new accessible second concourse with escalators, lifts and stairs for better passenger connections and platform extensions and better access to existing platforms including more weather protection.

Other features of the design including extra ticketing gates and doubling the number of lifts in the station to improve accessibility and ease of movement for travellers with luggage.

These improvements to Sunshine Station will complement future investments being considered by the Victorian Government to transform Sunshine into a key transport precinct and jobs centre for western Melbourne.

The Victorian Department of Transport is now inviting public feedback on scope details and concept designs at Sunshine and other locations including Albion and the Western Ring Road (M80).

The pipeline of major rail investments for western Melbourne – including the Metro Tunnel, Melbourne Airport Rail, Suburban Rail Loop and Western Rail Plan – will all contribute to Sunshine Station’s development into a transport superhub.

To maximise the benefits these major projects will bring to Sunshine, the Department of Transport is developing a Sunshine Station Masterplan, which will look at requirements for future investment and opportunities around Sunshine Station. This includes considering the plans of key stakeholders such as the local council and other transport agencies.

Melbourne Airport Rail will be delivered by Rail Projects Victoria (RPV), which currently
has $30 billion invested in regional and metropolitan rail projects across Victoria.

Trains will run from Melbourne Airport through to Sunshine Station, into the Metro Tunnel in the CBD and then out onto the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines in Melbourne’s south east.

Planning and development for this major project is now underway with construction set to start in 2022, subject to all relevant approvals.