Are passenger trains to Mildura worth it?

The T&G Mutual building in Mildura (via Mattinbgn)

A few months ago, the Parliamentary Budget Office released the results of modelling instigated by Liberal Democratic MLC Tim Quilty, who represents the Victorian upper house region of Northern Victoria. Quilty had asked the PBO to cost a proposal to run three shuttle services per week in each direction from Maryborough to Mildura, and to pay for this by scrapping the Victorian Government's subsidy for the Overland. To my mind this is completely the wrong way to go about things - running a train every second day makes it unlikely to be useful for people, and cannibalising the Overland to do it is just petty and unnecessary - but it does at least give us some very useful numbers from which to extrapolate. 

Ten years of the Maryborough line

Friday was the 10-year anniversary of the government reopening the Maryborough line to passenger trains - so now's as good a time as any to take a look at the history of the line, how it works today, and what should happen for the future.

N Class Bingo

N465 City of Ballaarat at Southern Cross Station

A bit of a gunzelly/trainspotty post for you today.