21 July 2017

The Andrews Labor Government is making it even easier for Gippsland passengers to travel to Melbourne and regional Victoria, by delivering an additional 18 weekday and weekend services from 27 August.

Member for Eastern Victoria, Harriet Shing stated that the new V-Line timetable, with new services gives passengers easier access to sporting and entertainment events held in the city.

The new timetable includes a new off-peak 6:48pm evening service from Traralgon to Southern Cross, and an extension of the 11:59pm Friday late-night service to each weeknight from Southern Cross to Traralgon, helping more people get home after a night out.

Weekend services will be improved with five extra services on Saturdays and four on Sundays, meaning that footy fans now have all weekend Gippsland services stopping at Richmond Station.

The new services come on top of the 10 extra weekly services added to the Gippsland corridor in January, taking the number of services added by the Labor Government this year to 28.

As more passengers use V-Line, the Labor Government has invested $311.1 million for 39 new VLocity carriages on top of the existing order of 48 new carriages, in order to add capacity to the busiest service
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Gippsland passengers will also benefit from the Victorian and Federal Government’s Regional Rail Revival, with $435 million for major upgrades between Pakenham and Traralgon and $95 million to replace the Avon River Bridge in Stratford.

The times of coaches and buses that connect with trains will also be adjusted to reflect the new timetable. The 11:35am coach from Canberra to Bairnsdale will depart at the earlier time of 7:40am and continue to Traralgon, where it will connect with a train to Melbourne.

There will also be changes to arrival and departure times of coaches to and from Lake Tyers Beach, Bairnsdale and Sale, Marlo, Leongatha and Yarram, Inverloch, Batemans Bay, Traralgon and Cowes.

Timetables are now available from www.vline.com.au/27august.

Passengers will be able to pick up printed timetables from stations and plan their trip using the Plan a Journey tool on the V-Line website from Thursday 27 July.

Quotes attributable to Member for Eastern Victoria Harriet Shing:

“Whether it’s going to the theatre or the footy, we’re giving Gippslanders more choice on when they want to travel and making it easy for them to enjoy Melbourne with more late night and weekend services”.

“We’ve added 28 services to the Traralgon corridor this year, giving Gippsland residents a way to get around Victoria safer and sooner.”