AN opportunity to travel by passenger rail to and from Hamilton this weekend on a vintage locomotive, the ‘Spirit of Progress’, has been derailed by the Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC), who decided not to grant approval.

The schedule for the heritage train included picking up passengers from Melbourne enroute to Portland, on Friday November 11, with a stop at North Shore (Greater Geelong) before travelling through the You Yangs and onto Maroona. 

The plan was then to enable passengers to travel by train on the Maroona-Portland freight line, stopping at Dunkeld, Hamilton, Heywood and overnight in Portland - however, this line was the sticking point for the ARTC.

On Saturday November 12, the train was scheduled to shuttle passengers between Hamilton and Dunkeld for the Dunkeld Cup and on Sunday morning, November 13, shuttles would have run between Portland and Heywood.

However, following a protracted three-way meeting between V/Line, the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre (SRHC) who restored the train, and the ARTC on Thursday last week, the scheduled visit by the heritage locomotive will not go ahead.

The ARTC did not give permission for the train based on risk assessments and determined that safety for passengers, could not be guaranteed.

Ticket holders who booked and paid for the opportunity to step back in time and travel in the fully renovated, air-conditioned comfort of the vintage carriages, will be fully refunded.

Although, SRHC president, John Croft was greatly disappointed with the ARTC’s decision, he remained upbeat about future prospects for the special train to travel to western Victoria. 

“It’s a postponement not a cancellation,” he said.

“Unfortunately, our meeting with the Australian Rail Track Corporation ARTC …didn’t achieve the result we were looking for in terms of approval to run our train next weekend.

“We respect the ARTC’s risk processes and have to work within those.

“We remain in a process to convince them the management of the risks associated with our passenger train using the freight only Maroona - Portland branch line, are eminently manageable.

“We are determined to establish proof of concept for rail tourism products to south-western Victoria and we hope you will all remain supportive as we look to reschedule.”

Mr Croft was confident that the locomotive would be rescheduled to travel the Maroona-Portland freight line in 2023 to capitalise on a scheduled public event within the district. 

He said the SRHC would await advice from Southern Grampians and Glenelg Shire teams regarding a suitable date and suggestions concerning local events that could be targeted.

“Hopefully somewhere in the window of February, March or April - we haven’t fixed a date - it’s up to the relevant shires to suggest to us good time for local events we could tie into,” he said.

Mr Croft also said that it was not out of the question to run the line twice in 2023 and said SRHC would strongly consider running the train at the next Dunkeld Cup November 2023 – in addition to an earlier schedule.

“SRHC would prefer to schedule a visit and bring incremental economic benefits to the region, rather than target the March Labor Day weekend, or Easter weekend for example, when people would likely already be visiting western Victoria,” he said.

 “We would select a weekend that would bring visitors to the region when they would possibly otherwise not have chosen to come.”

Wannon MP Dan Tehan was also disappointed in the outcome of Thursday’s meeting and the ARTC’s final decision.

Mr Tehan spoke earlier last week with his former Coalition parliamentary colleague, former deputy prime minister, Warren Truss who is now chair of the ARTC, advocating approval for the proposed visit by the train to the south-west.

Following the ARTC’s decision, Mr Tehan expressed his extreme disappointment and blamed bureaucracy for impeding the visit.

“I hope they will be able to reduce the red tape and work with the Spirit of Progress to enable it to visit in the near future,” he said.

Thousands of volunteer hours have been dedicated by members of the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre (SRHC) established in 1983, to fully restore the original 1937 carriages of the Spirit of Progress train, which has two engines - both diesel 1950 and 1960 locomotives.

The Spirit of Progress was an express service train from Melbourne to Albury until 1962, when the addition of a standard gauge track enabled it to travel all the way to Sydney overnight; the last service ran in 1986.

The restored train rolls along at a relaxed 40 kilometres per hour with enough room for up to 200 from Melbourne passengers and affords passengers the opportunity to enjoy a drink in the iconic parlour or experience an open-air, observation car, with refreshments or a light lunch available for purchase from the kiosk.

For the shuttles, it has the capacity to carry at least 350 passengers.

The special train was to leave its home base of Seymour on Friday, November 11, at 7.10am, taking passengers to Southern Cross, arriving at 8.53 am where the locomotives would change ends.

The schedule included a brief stop at Dunkeld at 3.17pm where passengers could choose to disembark, before it headed to Hamilton arriving at 4.05pm for a few minutes, then onto Heywood before finally arriving at Portland at about 6.30pm.

The SRHC had been undeterred by the cancellation of the Dunkeld Cup and forged ahead with the plan to shuttle passengers between Dunkeld and Hamilton throughout the afternoon on Saturday, November 12, to give visitors a taste of the Grampians, and perhaps stay overnight.

The SRHC is a railway preservation group, a volunteer non-profit incorporated association based in Seymour Victoria, and has restored several more diesel electric locomotives and a variety of carriages to fully operational condition.

A spokesperson for the ARTC told The Spectator on Monday, it would continue to support heritage rail and heritage rail groups around Australia.

However, “the Maroona to Portland route is a designated freight line and as such no heritage and/or passenger services are permitted to operate on this line without prior permission from the ARTC”, they said.

The spokesperson confirmed the ARTC had been working with the Seymour Heritage Rail Centre on a joint risk assessment with V/Line to determine operational risk.

“ARTC will continue to work with the Seymour Heritage Rail Centre,” they said.