Melbourne Just Exposed the V/Line Problems

Added: 2026-06-01

[00:00:00]Things have generally been looking pretty positive for Victorian public transport lately. Big changes are happening across the network. Passenger numbers are climbing and there's been a renewed focus on getting people out of their cars and back onto trains. But there's a catch because some of those positive changes have also unintentionally exposed weaknesses that have been sitting underneath the Vline network for years. Let's find out.

[00:00:27]This video was created with the help of Railtown Productions. Be sure to check out their channel for more Aussie rail content. Before we get into the problems, how is the Vline service doing? In short, a massive hit. Regional rail patronage has absolutely exploded over the last few years with passenger numbers smashing through prepandemic levels and reaching records the network has never really had to deal with before. In 2023, Vline carried around 20.3 million passenger trips. That jumped to 24.1 million in 2024 before climbing again to roughly 26.4 million trips in 2025.

[00:01:07]But recently, the numbers coming out of Vline haven't been pretty. According to the latest performance data, punctuality on some regional lines has dropped to its worst level in nearly a decade. Just as Victoria rolled out free public transport and passenger demand surged across the network, the biggest hit was on the Swan Hill and Achuka corridors where only around 56% of services arrived within 11 minutes of schedule during April. Veline's punctuality target sits at 92%. So these lines haven't consistently met that target since early 2022.

[00:01:42]Sadly, the Swanhill and Auka lines have been having a rough run lately. Back in January 2026, the whole corridor pretty much got cooked by extreme heat and bushfires with temperatures over 42 degrees. Things got so bad that Veline had to fully pull both trains and coaches off the line while fires damaged parts of the tracks and signaling gear.

[00:02:05]People ended up stuck on replacement transport for more than a week while crews work to get the corridor running again. Usually for these lines, the problems come down to two things: nature and the system itself. On the nature side, extreme heat regularly forces trains to slow down because rails can bend in high temperatures, while regional corridors also deal with animals wandering onto the tracks and causing delays. Then there's the system side. Single track bottlenecks, signal faults, aging infrastructure, and the fact that Vline trains eventually have to merge onto Melbourne's busy metro network near the city, where one late running service can quickly get stuck behind suburban trains and lose even more time. But those are the problems Veline has been dealing with for years.

[00:02:50]What's different this time is that recent passenger friendly initiatives have added even more pressure to an already stretched network. The biggest factor was Victoria's free public transport initiative during the fuel crisis. Free travel across April and May triggered a huge surge in Vline patronage almost overnight, particularly on long-distance routes. To keep things moving, seat reservations were temporarily scrapped on many services.

[00:03:16]But that created a new problem. Nobody really knew how many people were turning up until the train arrived. Without reservations, operators also lost a key way of forecasting demand, creating what some passengers dubbed a ghost booking effect, where crowd levels became much harder to predict. Then there was the dwell time issue. More passengers meant longer station stops, and those extra minutes quickly added up across the entire journey, causing delays to snowball throughout the timetable. Then came Melbourne's big switch. At the start of February this year, Victoria rolled out one of the biggest timetable changes in the state's history as part of preparations for the Metro Tunnel era. Now, long-term, this is supposed to be a positive thing. The new timetable added services on some regional routes and is designed to unlock more capacity across Melbourne's rail network, but in the short term, it created some pretty serious growing pains because the big switch reshuffleled train movements across large parts of Melbourne's network. And once a VLine service leaves its dedicated regional tracks and enters Melbourne's suburban rail system, it has to compete for space with metro trains.

[00:04:25]Under the new arrangements, even a small delay could quickly snowball near Melbourne with late running Vline trains often losing their path and getting stuck behind metro services.

[00:04:36]The result was a perfect storm. Record passenger demand, overcrowding, a major timetable overhaul, and a network that already had very little spare capacity left to begin with. And honestly, Melbourne isn't the first rail network to get caught out by its own success.

[00:04:54]In Germany, the famous €9 ticket introduced during the 2022 energy crisis. The government dramatically cut public transport fairs to help households cope with rising fuel costs following Russia's invasion of Ukraine.

[00:05:08]Millions of people suddenly switched to trains, overwhelming regional services, and creating severe overcrowding, longer station stops, and networkwide delays.

[00:05:19]Spain faced a different problem. To ease cost of living pressures, the government made many commuter and regional rail services free for frequent travelers.

[00:05:27]Demand surged, but because reservations were still required on some routes, passengers began booking multiple trains just in case and not showing up. The resulting ghost booking crisis left services appearing sold out on paper while genuine passengers struggled to secure seats. Meanwhile, in the United Kingdom, the issue wasn't cheap fairs, but a massive timetable overhaul in 2018 designed to integrate major new rail infrastructure projects such as the Temp's link program. The new timetable relied on older parts of the network operating almost perfectly. And when small delays occurred, they quickly cascaded across the system, resulting in one of the worst rail disruptions in modern British history.

[00:06:15]So, what happened after the headlines faded? Well, the good news is that none of those rail networks stayed in crisis forever. Germany eventually replaced its famous €9 ticket with a permanent ticket. Fairs gradually increased to help fund upgrades. While operators introduced crowd monitoring tools that actively warn passengers when trains are likely to be packed, the network still carries huge numbers of passengers today. But the chaos of 2022 has largely settled down. Spain took a tougher approach. After the ghost booking problem left passengers stranded while trains appeared full on paper, operators introduced automated penalties, booking restrictions, and even temporary bans for repeat offenders. The result was a much more predictable reservation system and better use of available capacity.

[00:07:05]And in the UK, the infamous 2018 timetable meltdown ultimately forced a complete rethink of how major timetable changes are rolled out.

[00:07:15]So, what's Melbourne doing? Thankfully, Victoria already has several solutions either underway or coming online. One of the biggest investments is 318 million for maintenance and safety upgrades aimed at making the regional rail network more reliable and reducing disruptions for passengers. There's also a more immediate solution already happening.

[00:07:38]After the huge passenger surge created by the free travel initiative, Victoria is now transitioning to halfpric public transport.

[00:07:47]While still extremely affordable, that small fair barrier helps smooth demand and reduce the overcrowding that contributed to the platform boarding delays and timetable blowouts seen during April and May. Longer term, projects like the level crossing removal project and regional rail revival upgrades are helping improve the Swan Hill and Auka lines through faster tracks, modern signaling, and fewer bottlenecks where regional trains interact with Melbourne's suburban network.

[00:08:14]So basically, the fixes are coming, just probably not fast enough to immediately keep up with the surge in demand. But at least there's a clear plan in place, and the network isn't standing still.

[00:08:28]So here's our question for you guys.

[00:08:30]What should Victoria prioritize?

[00:08:33]Type A for more services or B for better reliability?

[00:08:39]Once again, a special thanks to Railtown Productions for the footages and to everybody who helps our channel grow one way or another.

[00:08:48]Thanks for watching. See you next time.