After years of debate and speculation Melbourne’s Tullamarine Airport will finally be connected to the city via a passenger rail line.  The project funding has been given the green-light and the project is now a key pillar in a very ambitious rail plan pledged by the Victorian Government recently.

Melbourne’s new 27 kilometre airport rail link will connect Southern Cross Station (Spencer Street) to a new passenger train station at the soon to be redeveloped Tullamarine Airport Precinct. The preferred route travels via an upgraded Sunshine station and allows the project to avoid as much land acquisition and tunneling as possible.

This new rail infrastructure is also planned to improve current regional services to Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat.  Regional services will not only experience more direct access to Victoria’s International Airport, the additional rail lines also provide increased capacity for more frequent regional services to these major centres and beyond.

Construction on the project is expected to begin in late 2020 and completed by 2027.  The estimated $15 billion project is expected to include 27km of new rail, twin tunnels between Southern Cross and Sunshine stations, a redeveloped station and rail-hub at Sunshine and a new underground railway station at Melbourne-Tullamarine Airport.

This follows the recent completion of the Caulfield – Dandenong elevated rail line, the beginning of Melbourne Metro construction and pledges for a 90km metropolitan ring rail line and high-speed regional rail lines, it looks as though rail is set to lead the way in Victoria’s current infrastructure boom.