Council & Business
29 August, 2022
Council continues rail advocacy with calls for Myki, more services
The Central Goldfields Shire Council has written to the Minister for Public Transport Ben Carroll, advocating for increased rail services and Myki activation at the Maryborough Railway Station. Central Goldfields Shire councillors noted at last...
The Central Goldfields Shire Council has written to the Minister for Public Transport Ben Carroll, advocating for increased rail services and Myki activation at the Maryborough Railway Station.
Central Goldfields Shire councillors noted at last week’s council meeting that mayor Chris Meddows-Taylor had written to Minister Carroll on behalf of the organisation, calling for additional weekday passenger services and Myki activation among others.
The organisation also wrote to Minister Carroll earlier this year alongside the Rail Futures Institute, advocating for improved weekday services.
In the letter councillors noted last week, added weekday passenger services were highlighted as council’s key priority, while Myki activation, the third stage of the Maryborough Railway Station Activation project, access to the former goods shed at the station and further railyard development were also flagged as priorities.
Cr Meddows-Taylor said this letter of advocacy largely built on Member for Western Victoria Jaala Pulford’s announcement of four additional weekend services to and from Maryborough in May.
“We’re thrilled by the announcement of those weekend services and it’s great news, but we fall far short of the Ararat services — Maryborough is bigger than Ararat and we deserve comparable services but we do not have them,” he said.
“I went to a meeting in Melbourne recently and I had to drive to Wendouree to access a train because the train wouldn’t come back into Talbot where I live in time for me to get home.
“It’s absolute craziness, we need better services.
“Something we hear regularly is that there aren’t many people using the trains here and of course there aren’t, the services we have are too inflexible to allow people to reliably commute to work or away on weekends.”
Cr Meddows-Taylor said it was also crucial Myki activation occurred in Maryborough, as well as the next stage of the railway activation project.
“Myki activation just needs to happen, there’s no reason for it not to happen here,” he said.
“The opening hours of the V/Line office here have been reduced so the least that can happen is we get Myki activation for convenience.
“The other big thing is that we want the next stage of the station activation project to position us for World Heritage listing, to tell the story of gold and make us a global destination centre.
“Rail has been a distinguished part of Maryborough’s history and it can be an important part of our future — traditional strengths can be future opportunities and that’s what we’ve got to build on.”