Stage One of Latrobe Valley's railway upgrade complete

After the most intensive construction period on the Latrobe Valley line in 120 years, normal train services resumed the day after Anzac Day.

The return of passenger trains marks the end of the first stage of construction, with several further phases of works to be rolled out during the year. Also, it was the first time passenger trains have run to the far eastern Gippsland town of Bairnsdale since the previuos government stopped trains from Melbourne at Sale

More than 350 rail workers, engineers, sub-contractors and project staff were directly employed. In the nine weeks to the end of April, employees replaced almost 100,000 timber sleepers with concrete ones. A few thousand sleepers were laid late last year, and more will be installed later this year. This means that about 64km of track, has been completed.

Added to that were13 level crossing upgrades, the removal of hundreds of redundant electrical overhead gantries, embankment widening and widespread drainage improvements

While much of the expertise comes from RRL's own team at John Holland, which played a key role in building the Alice Springs to Darwin railway, local sub-contractors, suppliers and workers will also play a vital role.

"The impressive machines used during the construction, such as the 'pony' resleepering machine, have been head turners and have attracted the most local interest."

“While we still lay some of the sleepers manually, it usually involves machines such as track-mounted fork lifts and bob-cats. Today we also have the comparative luxury of a large `pony' resleepering machine which can pull out the old timber sleepers and insert a new concrete sleeper in one swift operation. So we can definitely appreciate the hard manual labour of 126 years ago when rail gangs first laid the tracks, literally by hand,” Mr Chudacek said.

While the ballast settles, trains will be limited to speeds of 100km/hr. But after a few months design speeds of 160km/hr will be allowed.

Stage one has just seen the closure of the line to passenger trains for nine weeks to allow the vast majority of heavy track works to be completed.

As announced in February, further stages of works are required – generally one or two weekends per month to allow for the installation of a state-of-the-art signalling system, which will be hooked up to a new fibre-optic network beside the train line.

While the new signal system will greatly improve the flexibility of train services in the Latrobe Valley, additional works programmed throughout the year also include the installation of new cross-overs in several locations to allow trains to switch between tracks.

Regional Rail Link, Project Director, Jock Chudacek said the project had attracted widespread interest in the 13 Latrobe Valley cities and towns where works have taken place over the past two months.

"More than 60 kilometres of track has been fully upgraded with nearly 100,000 concrete sleepers in the past nine weeks," Mr Chudacek said. ", and it's clear why we've been so busy."

Mr Chudacek thanked Latrobe Valley residents for their warm reception of the 350 workers on the project. "The project has gone extremely well to date, thanks largely to local communities embracing the works, and recognising the long term benefits resulting from short term inconveniences such as level crossing closures."

With the return of normal train services this Monday, 26 April, Mr Chudacek warned residents to continue exercising caution near the train line, especially at level crossings.

Final testing of the line will be undertaken this weekend to allow train services to return on Monday.

Mr Chudacek said the works during the construction period would be the largest since the line opened on 2 April, 1879.

“for the works,” said Mr Chudacek. “In railway terms, the sheer logistics of this operation have not been seen in the Valley for more than 120 years.”