Major works are now underway to remove the dangerous and congested Ferguson Street level crossing in Williamstown. The level crossing will be gone for good months ahead of schedule, and trains will stop at the new North Williamstown Station in November this year.

A major construction blitz will start on Sunday 15 August and finish Saturday 13 November. Crews will work around the clock to excavate a rail trench, remove the level crossing, and build a new North Williamstown Station.

While these works take place Ferguson Street will be closed for up to 6 weeks and buses will replace trains on the Williamstown Line.

We will provide regular updates ahead of works as well as the latest project information and timelines.

How we’ll work with you

Understanding your business and working with you is important to us. Our commitment to you and your business is to:

• have dedicated staff to keep you up to date about the project and timing of potential impacts
• ensure you have information about detours or changes to access to help your staff and customers get around
• conduct marketing campaigns to encourage the community to continue to shop locally during works
• procure goods and services locally, where we can
• managing traffic and workforce parking to minimise the impact an influx of workers and truck movements can have on the local area.

What to expect

There is a lot of work to be done to remove the level crossing. To lower the rail, we will need to excavate around 50,000 cubic metres of rock and clay. That's enough to fill 20 Olympic-sized swimming pools!

While we work to dig the trench and build the new North Williamstown Station there will be an increase in noise, vibration and dust.

We will try to reduce the impact of these works by using:

• noise dampening measures such as noise blankets
• dust monitoring and dust prevention measures including wetting down the site and covering trucks
• directional lighting to prevent light spill into neighbouring properties
• designated routes for construction traffic to minimise impacts to local roads.

Getting around Williamstown

While we excavate the new rail trench, we will need to remove the rail track and part of Ferguson Street at the level crossing. While we do this, there will be changes to how people can travel around Williamstown.

We encourage local businesses to communicate with staff and customers about any of the changes. We can support your business by providing disruption information to share with your customers including maps for web, email and social media.

Below are the major travel disruptions:

• North Williamstown Station will close from Monday 2 August to prepare for the major rail disruption. A shuttle service will take passengers to neighbouring stations.
• Buses replace trains between Newport and Williamstown from 8.30pm Friday 20 August to last service Friday 12 November.
• Ferguson Street will be closed at the level crossing to drivers from Sunday 15 August for up to six weeks, with detours in place.
• Pedestrian and cyclist access will be maintained, with traffic management to guide the community through the area.
• The speed limit will be reduced to 40km/h around the project area for the safety of crews and the community.

Stay up to date

We'll share information via door knocks, letterbox drops, phone calls, meetings and project website updates. We will also hold pop-up events around Williamstown.

In addition to this, our team will visit your business and is available for face to face meetings.

We will also communicate via dedicated trader email updates.

We will also hold pop-up events around Williamstown to speak with people about the project. You can also:

• SMS Ferguson to 0438 479 376 to sign up for text messages about our project works
• visit our website and social media channels for regular updates.

Get in touch

If you have any questions, concerns or would like to organise a face-to-face meeting about upcoming project works call us on 1800 105 105 or email contact@levelcrossings.vic.gov.au