V/Line to open new train maintenance facility in Ballarat, Victoria

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Up to 30 new jobs will be created when a new V/Line train maintenance facility opens at Ballarat East by the end of the year, Minister for Regional Cities Denis Napthine has announced.

The $16.5 million project involves construction of a three track maintenance facility so V/Line trains can be serviced or repaired when stabled overnight.

Previously trains were maintained solely in Melbourne. Global rail company Bombardier maintains all of the V/Line train fleet and has been involved in the design and construction of the new facility.

Mr Napthine said Bombardier would move some jobs from Melbourne to Ballarat while others will be created as new positions.

“V/Line is already one of the bigger employers in Ballarat with 107 staff directly employed and up to 40 more indirectly employed through train and station cleaning and maintenance contracts,” he said.

“This is good news for Ballarat and western Victoria. V/Line and Bombardier have confidence that there is a sufficiently skilled workforce here to do the work that is required.”

V/Line Chief Executive Officer Rob Barnett said the facility would be significant:

“The new facility will make a big difference to the way we do things operationally,” he said.

“It can potentially mean less cancellations or carriage reductions due to problems that will be addressed here in Ballarat rather than taking the trains back to Melbourne for repair and minor maintenance.”

A small repair and fuel depot currently exists at Ballarat East. Its expansion is part of V/Line’s longer term strategy to move VLocity train maintenance from Melbourne to major regional areas including Ballarat and Geelong.

The new facility is being built in mind to accommodate a future overhead crane and train jacks.

“In future this will allow for heavy maintenance to occur including engine swaps and bogie replacements,” Mr Barnett said.

Bombardier Operations Manager Lindsay Menzies said it made sense to move to a brand new facility.

“Several of our staff were already travelling from Ballarat to Melbourne for work,” he said.

“Where we can we want to recruit locally. This will give us more space to do our work and improve reliability of V/Line’s trains.”

The maintenance depot is located in the Ballarat East rail yards, near the Ballarat Railway Station.

Bombardier has maintained the V/Line VLocity fleet since their introduction in 2005 and will have built 134 carriages at its Dandenong factory by the end of November.

The lead contractor on the project is Abigroup. They began construction of the maintenance facility in May and there is up to 50 people on site at any one time.

More than 90% of the Abigroup employed workforce on site is from Ballarat with several local businesses including Premier Plumbing, Woodside Mechanical, Laser Electrical, Town & Country Concreting, Watershed Commercial Roofing, Langdon Plumbing and Philip Vawdrey Engineering assisting with construction.

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