Gerry McCabe
The importance of the Upfield line
The Upfield railway line runs through Melbourne's northern working class suburbs of Brunswick, Coburg and Gowrie and ends at the Ford factory at Upfield. For years successive governments have tried to close it down. I recently heard an Upfield line worker tell how her mother-in-law in the 1920s expected to be retrenched in order to close the line. Under the Liberals in the 1980s the Lonie Report recommended a freeway be built along the line. Labor wanted to replace the train with a tram (known as "light rail").
In recent months the Liberals are at it again wanting to close it down and build a freeway (the Western Bypass) on part of the line.
The Upfield line has been so neglected by successive governments that parts of the railway infrastructure have been recommended for inclusion on the Historic Buildings Register as a remarkable example of 19th century railway technology! This includes some manually operated gates and signal boxes and several kerosene-powered semaphore signal masts.
Despite the neglect the line carries 8000 passengers or 16,000 passenger trips per day (1990 survey). It is in fact the original railway line to Sydney, and although it is electrified only as far as Upfield, the line itself continues on to the new satellite fringe suburbs of Roxburgh Park and Craigieburn.
The campaign to retain the line in recent years has included two demands: 1. that the line be upgraded (automatic signalling and boom gates) to bring it in line with the rest of the urban rail system; and 2. that it be electrified to the public transport-starved suburbs of Roxburgh Park and Craigieburn.
In March 1992, Labor Premier Joan Kirner allocated $10 million for this upgrading to start. Unfortunately, as a result of the need to work out the heritage issues (which have mostly been resolved), the contracts were not let prior to the calling of the state election.
Alan Brown, the new minister for public transport, has proposed the line be closed. The purpose is to make a dubious saving of $4 million (dubious because the figures on which he bases his calculations are too simplistic) and to use part of the railway reserve for the Western Bypass.
Brown was anxious to reach an agreement with the rail unions on other cost-cutting "reforms" prior to the March 13 federal elections. In order to reach this agreement, he put the Upfield closure on hold until the Environmental Effects Statement for the Western Bypass is completed later this year.
The only sane alternative for this train line is to upgrade it and extend it further north. The proposal to build any free/tollway or bypasses (a road by any other name is still a road) needs to be resisted in itself, let alone the madness of closing a train line to
The latest initiative of the campaign has been to seek federal funds for the upgrading. If this upgrade is not carried out, a worker on the line could be telling of previous attempts to close it down to the campaigners wanting to save the Upfield line in the year 2020.
[Gerry McCabe is the secretary of the Save the Upfield Line Campaign.]