In a rail debacle that’s left commuters scratching their heads, the Department of Transport and Planning has revealed that five out of six Melbourne trains won’t fit through the shiny new $13.87B Metro Tunnel. Even the soon-to-arrive Xtrapolis 2.0 trains, designed after the tunnel plans were known, won’t make the cut.
Adding to the comedy of errors, the safety doors at each Metro Tunnel station only cater to High-Capacity trains—just 65 out of Melbourne’s 460 sets. Shadow Transport Minister Matthew Guy didn’t mince words, saying, “It takes a special kind of incompetence to build a piece of rail infrastructure costing taxpayers at least $13.87 billion, which can’t be used by 85 per cent of Melbourne’s trains.”
