The Carroll government will duplicate Melbourne's Upfield line if it is re-elected — but scheduled works to remove level crossings on the line will be delayed seven years, the ABC reports. The line through Melbourne's northern suburbs still runs on a section of single track between Gowrie and Upfield stations, which limits how many services can run on the line at any one time.

Premier Ben Carroll said the duplication would be crucial for Melbourne's north and would improve the reliability of rail services to the area, and that residents on the line have complained about long waits between services on the single-track section. "I'm from Melbourne's north-western suburbs; this has been spoken about for generations," Mr Carroll said.

The money is the catch. The premier estimated the duplication would cost between $650 million and $1.4 billion, but stopped short of guaranteeing funding for the project. What the government is committing to instead — if it wins November's state election — is a study. "$80 million to do a detailed study on what the duplication will require, those four kilometres of track," Mr Carroll said. "We will expect the planning and duplication study to be completed by 2028." The duplication itself, he says, would be delivered by 2033.

Asked about spending $80 million on a study to be conducted by government departments and agencies, Minister for Public Transport Vicki Ward said it was a financially prudent investment in the future of Melbourne's north. "The government is giving the money to the Victorian people and the people who live on this line," Ms Ward said.

The announcement is the latest in what the ABC describes as a protracted series of promised business cases and plans to duplicate the line. In February 2025, the Albanese government announced $7.05 million towards a business case for upgrades to Melbourne's northern metropolitan railway lines. This year's 2026/27 state budget then allocated $3.6 million to "complete a final program business case" on improvements including the duplication.

Eight crossings, seven more years

As part of the announcement, the government said it would also delay the removal of eight level crossings on the Upfield line. Mr Carroll said the delays would align that work with the duplication in 2033, saving $686 million. After its 2022 election victory, Labor promised 110 level crossing removals would be completed by 2030 — and as recently as last year the government's Big Build website carried that 2030 date, which has now slipped a further three years.

Shadow Minister for Transport Infrastructure Evan Mulholland said the government had now delayed the level crossing removals for two more elections. "Not into the next term of parliament, but into the following term of parliament," Mr Mulholland said. He accused the government of delaying the removals repeatedly as a political strategy: "Why have they been delayed? Because this government needs to get them outside of the forward estimates, to not account for them." And he tied the choice to geography: "Whenever this government needs somewhere to cut, it picks the Upfield line, and it picks the northern suburbs."

The Victorian Greens said the government had not committed to actually building the project and was delaying much-needed works on the line. "Labor promised these level crossings would be gone by 2027. Then it was 2030. Now it's 2033 — while communities across the north continue to grow and wait for the infrastructure they were promised," Greens MP Anasina Gray-Barberio said. "Communities in the north deserve so much better than empty pre-election announcements that just disappear over the horizon." The Greens are calling on the government to commit $246 million to duplicate the line.

The pledge joins a lengthening Labor promise ledger — the $550 million Western Freeway upgrade and the Jack's Law commitment among them — with the November 28 election now just shy of two months away.