Students told: no rail travel for you

Kim Waters
Geelong’s rail squeeze forced V/Line to cancel a school’s booking for a camp trip, an MP has told state Parliament.
Paul Weller accused V/Line of discriminating against the students and teachers from Echuca, who had booked a train trip to Geelong for the camp at Anglesea.
Mr Weller said parents were forced to pay almost double the cost of train fares to hire a private bus instead.
“I think it’s unfair that country schools can’t utilise the train system and in this case some students, because of their family’s financial situation, couldn’t go on the trip,” Mr Weller said.
V/Line told the school it “couldn’t cope with the numbers” and “wouldn’t have enough room for other passengers”, Mr Weller said.
“The school made the booking in July for the October camp. Its not like (V/Line) didn’t know about the number of students who would be travelling.
“The school didn’t mind travelling at off-peak times but V/Line wouldn’t organise a train for another time.”
A V/Line spokesperson said the cancellation was “unfortunate” but the company was only accepting group student bookings for off-peak travel.
“Obviously, with patronage the way it is we are very busy, so sometimes it’s just not viable for schools to travel at peak times,” the spokesperson said.
“We’re doing the best we can and schools can generally find alternatives, like organising private coaches.”
Opposition transport spokes-man Terry Mulder slammed State Government for Victoria’s “public transport crisis”.
A spokesman for Acting Public Transport Minister Tim Pallas said the Government had committed $236 million to introducing longer trains across the state’s busiest routes, including Geelong.
“This will add 3800 seats across the network and increase capacity by up to 50 per cent,” the spokesperson said.