SURELY he’s taking us for a ride.
Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews this week posted about a radio duo “starting the longest V/Line trip that there is – from Mildura to Mallacoota”.
Only problem? The accompanying picture was not of the “start” of a journey “from Mildura”.
There was a train in the background – can’t get one of those at Mildura Station.
Mr Andrews was spruiking his government’s regional fare cap, which tops out daily travel at $9.20.
And look, it is worth spruiking. The cost of a full fare Mildura to Melbourne trip has just been cut by 84 per cent – a big relief to the thousand-plus people who board coaches on the Mildura line each week.
But at best, the post was misleading.
Less generously, it showed a premier seemingly with no concept of what reality is like for people who take long-distance public transport from Mildura.
Regardless of what you think about the train, and whether or not it should be restored, it can’t be said the current service is anything other than absolute garbage.
Having recently done trips to Melbourne, at both capped and uncapped fares, I can attest regular users of the service are not smiling on platforms.
It’s absurd that when the train was axed by Jeff Kennett in 1993, Mildura was promised “luxury road coaches” as a replacement, yet today’s coaches hardly evoke “luxury”. My seat was roughly 2.7 phone-lengths wide.
It’s absurd that after a cramped coach trip to Swan Hill, passengers board an N-type carriage with facing seats that, if someone is sitting opposite, prevent any stretching of legs. For four and a half hours.
It’s absurd that in Victoria, the longer your journey is, the less comfort you get. At Melbourne I switched to the Gippsland line, where I rode on a modern VLocity carriage, in a comfier seat, with far more legroom, and most passengers disembarked within two hours. We’ve got it backwards.
It’s absurd that to return at a reasonable hour, passengers take the 10.06am from Southern Cross. After a nice VLocity trip to Bendigo, there’s a 20-minute wait before the coach departs … in the not-so-direct direction of Swan Hill. Highlights beyond there include a delightful 40-minute stop at a Nyah roadhouse. Eventually, they get into Mildura about 6.04pm, exhausted and in need of remedial massage.
Train or no train, this service helps the elderly keep in touch with relatives, moves our essential seasonal workers, allows our kids to chase educational and sporting pursuits, and brings visitors in to boost our tourism economy.
For their experiences to be conflated with travellers who benefit from the hundreds of millions spent on new VLocity trains – and the extra 800 V/Line train services added since 2014 – is tone deaf.
Perhaps it’s fitting that the only time the Premier posts about V/Line services from Mildura, it’s to marvel about how absurd it is.
“Dan and Gabi from The Morning Crew are doing something which, frankly, I reckon is a bit out there,” Mr Andrews posted.
Oh, it’s out there alright, Premier.
In fact, it’s positively off the rails.
