The Government of Victoria, Australia, has begun replacing the sleeper lines between the Seymour and Shepparton lines.
Around 37,000 sleepers on the 83km section of track between the two stations are to be replaced. This is expected to improve safety when travelling for northeastern customers and to reduce the need for future maintenance.
Trains will travel at slower speeds over the new sleeper lines for the duration of this work in order to allow the sleepers to bed down. This will add an extra two minutes to journey times.
The Government of Victoria has stated that replacement works are being carried out during the night to ensure undisrupted train service.
The member for Northern Victoria, Jaclyn Symes, said: “We’re getting on with the job of replacing tens of thousands of sleepers along the Seymour and Shepparton lines, improving safety and reliability for regional commuters.
“We’ve invested more than $27m on sleeper replacements along the rail corridor in the last 12 months as part of our plan to deliver more reliable services for locals.”
The Government of Victoria completed maintenance work on the regional tracks near the Southern Cross station in Melbourne earlier this month. It announced a A$534m ($361m) second package of works on the Sunbury line last month.
It also placed an order for a new batch of VLocity trains with Bombardier in September. Bombardier will be responsible for building six VLocity trains. This move is anticipated to create approximately 100 direct jobs and hundreds more at various other levels of the supply chain.
