Melbourne Airport is an incredibly busy thoroughfare, and the design of Melbourne Airport Rail, including a new station at the airport, has to consider a range of existing infrastructure and any future expansion plans of airport owners APAM.
Now that we’ve confirmed the Melbourne Airport Rail route between Sunshine and the CBD via the Metro Tunnel, we’re entering into more detailed discussions with key stakeholders – including APAM – to come up with the best design and determine the exact location for the new train station at Melbourne Airport.
The area from Sharps Road to Melbourne Airport is on Commonwealth land and subject to separate planning approvals processes.
The new station will accommodate a future connection with Suburban Rail Loop services.
There are several factors that need to be carefully considered regarding the creation of additional stations as part of this project or into the future such as location, impact on travel time, scope of works, expected patronage and construction cost.
At this stage, an additional station is not within the Melbourne Airport Rail scope. We’ll keep the community updated if this approach changes.
Some land acquisition will be required for the construction and future operation of Melbourne Airport Rail. At this stage we expect this to be limited to commercial properties only.
There is a Public Acquisition Overlay (PAO 7) in place in areas between Tullamarine and Sunshine to reserve land for a rail line. This was put in place in 2005, when landowners and tenants were notified of a possible future acquisition.
There is still a considerable amount of design work to do to finalise land impacts, including identifying properties required under the PAO, whether additional land outside the PAO areas will be required and whether properties are required permanently or temporarily as part of the project.
We are committed to working closely with impacted landowners and tenants to keep them informed as planning progresses.
The Victorian and Australian governments have committed $5 billion each to the project to date.
We expect the project to cost between $8 and 13 billion, this is consistent with the figure outlined in the Sunshine Route Strategic Appraisal. The final project budget will be confirmed once all major contracts are awarded.
Melbourne Airport Rail is a massive engineering project and informed by feedback from the industry, it is proposed to divide works up into several packages to provide more opportunities to different contractors.
The first of these packages to go out to market covers works within the Sunshine/Albion area along the existing rail corridor including the improvements to Sunshine Station and building new twin tracks dedicated to Melbourne Airport Rail.
Further work is continuing to refine the exact scope and timing involved in each of the remaining packages of work. Rail Projects Victoria will run a robust and thorough tender process prior to awarding any delivery contracts for the project.
Further details are available on the Market engagement page.
Melbourne Airport Rail services will run every 10 minutes, which equates to 6 services per hour with seamless travel to the heart of Melbourne’s CBD in around 30 minutes.