About the Campaign
Over the past 125 years of railways on the Mornington Peninsula, there have been train lines to almost every corner - Mornington, Hastings, Stony Point, Long Island, HMAS Cerberus... even Red Hill! Yet the popular holiday destination of Rosebud has never had a railway line. The Peninsula Rail Link campaign started out as an investigation as to why.
The investigation began in September 2012 with the hypothesis that it is impossible to run a railway to Rosebud due to terrain and the high number of residential properties in the area blocking a path. However, this was soon disproven when a design was drawn up for a potential railway line that could get as close to Portsea, via Rosebud, as possible. The design revealed only one way to get rail to the area: down the median strips in the middle of the Mornington Peninsula Freeway and Moorooduc Highway, where there is adequate space between the inbound and outbound roads.
It was soon found that, due to the Tootgarook Wetlands, the furthest a railway line can go is to Rosebud. Furthermore, Rosebud is the perfect place to build sheds and even a maintenance facility for the line's trains, as there is a enough space between Boneo Road and the Wetlands.
As the project evolved, its feasibility as both a local train line and a transport option for holidaymakers became clearer and clearer, and it was decided the railway line should become a reality.
Unfortunately, this goal suffered a huge blow in the 2013 federal election, as Tony Abbott, who promised to never fund public transport, was voted in as Prime Minister. With his election came the vow to build only roads, including the $16b East-West Link in Melbourne's inner north.
Abbott was easily able to get then-Premier Denis Napthine on side, and all of a sudden Napthine also started forcing ahead the project at the cost of all public transport projects, including the three promised train lines (Melbourne Airport, Doncaster and Rowville) that got his predecessor, Ted Baillieu, voted in in the first place.
However, residents all over Victoria lashed out against the project, picketing preliminary works, launching huge protests and advertising their own alternatives. As the Peninsula Rail Link campaign did the same, it was found to be child's play to gain support, with dozens of residents and businesses alike throwing their support behind the project, and only three residents to date voicing their opposition.
Before too long, the Public Transport Users Association (PTUA) launched a new campaign called Public Transport Not Traffic (PTNT), which brought together every anti-East-West-Link campaign, be it pro-public transport, pro-environment, pro-economy or local residents, under a single banner. The Peninsula Rail Link campaign was one of the first campaigns to jump on board this campaign.
During this campaign, more public transport issues on the Mornington Peninsula began to surface: the lack of a single public transport service to Melbourne, and the lack of a cross-peninsula public transport service. In both cases, passengers must interchange at Frankston station and take two modes of public transport. Thus, the Peninsula Rail Link campaign expanded to advocate for general public transport improvements on the peninsula, with the line to Rosebud as its centrepiece.
Napthine has since been voted out in the 2014 state election, but challenges still face the Peninsula Rail Link. Abbott and his pro-road agenda still hangs over Victoria and its entire rail network. Furthermore, the incoming Labor government has labelled the project as "low priority", despite its ability to inject millions of dollars a year into the local economy.
Because of continued inaction by the current government, a new campaign has been launched by Sustainable Cities called #GetOnBoard, which the Peninsula Rail Link campaign has also joined to continue to keep the pressure on the state government to continue to fund public transport, and to keep major roads like the East-West Link at bay.
In 2018, a feasibility study began for Baxter electrification, the centrepiece of Stage 1 of the Peninsula Rail Link project. This study remains ongoing.
The team behind the Peninsula Rail Link campaign will continue to work tirelessly on the project until it is built. We will also continue to campaign for improved public transport for the whole peninsula.