Executive Summary: A worthwhile package of improvements that makes rail travel more useful for more trips. But despite political messaging about the dependence these have on large infrastructure projects, many could have been done years ago.
The Melbourne suburban rail network will be almost free of 40 minute gaps between trains when a new timetable starts in less than two weeks. The timetable will slash maximum waits on five lines and upgrade peak capacity and service on others. Some V/Line corridors, including Seymour/Shepparton, Wyndham Vale/Geelong as well as South Gippsland coaches will also benefit. An unlikely line emerges as the biggest winner from the new timetable - keep reading to find out what it is!
Summarised in this animation below.
You can click to stop it to read the fine print but there's a better summary here:
Transport Victoria explains these changes here. These add 390 trips per week on the Metro network. This is an average of 56 more trips per day. Or a rise of 2.2% on Metro Trains' current 18000 trips per week master timetable.
What does all this mean?
* The busy Craigieburn line gets 115 services per week added, with Sunday morning, evening and shoulder peak boosts, implementing 2025 State Budget funded upgrades. Before the increase it had gaps between trains of 40 min on Sunday morning and 30 minutes at night. However midday frequency remains at 20 minutes, well short of the 10 minute service proposed in the Metro Tunnel Business case.
* The Upfield line gets similar evening and Sunday morning improvements to the Craigieburn line, amounting to 77 extra trips per week. Its peaks remain at every 16 minutes. The 2026 state budget funded a study of the line's duplication and extension to permit improved frequency.
* Sandringham line is the biggest winner in this timetable change with three main improvements. These include cutting its 40 minute Sunday morning gaps to 20 minutes, improving weekday interpeak frequency from 15 to 10 minutes and through running it to Southern Cross, North Melbourne, Footscray, Newport and beyond. Through running will hopefully also mean nicer platforms at Flinders St with shorter walking distances.
The government's release groups Werribee, Laverton, Williamstown and Sandringham as getting more than 180 extra services per week. Accidentally or otherwise, this grouping obscures the fact that the vast majority of the extra trips will be at the Sandringham (eastern) end, not the western (Werribee) end.
* The Werribee line will gain some extra peak frequency plus resumed direct access to Richmond, South Yarra and beyond. Like Sandringham, this was funded in the 2025 State Budget. But unlike Sandringham these upgrades do not extend to a 10 minute off-peak weekday frequency. Like with the Metro Tunnel's West Footscray turnback, eastern sections of through lines tend to get the higher off-peak frequencies.
The May 2025 announcement was 2 extra trains per hour in the morning and afternoon peaks, increasing service from every 10 to every 7.5 minutes on average. This is delivered for one hour in the mornings and one hour in the afternoons. A welcome early morning trip (which qualifies for free Early Bird travel) is added at 6:22am. However the new timetable does not fill the 24 minute gap after 7:46pm (caused by the weeknight transition from express to via Altona running).
A summary of peak direction trips (times at Werribee) is below. The new timetable adds three morning trips and two afternoon trips, or 25 extra trips per week.
What does all this mean?
* The busy Craigieburn line gets 115 services per week added, with Sunday morning, evening and shoulder peak boosts, implementing 2025 State Budget funded upgrades. Before the increase it had gaps between trains of 40 min on Sunday morning and 30 minutes at night. However midday frequency remains at 20 minutes, well short of the 10 minute service proposed in the Metro Tunnel Business case.
* The Upfield line gets similar evening and Sunday morning improvements to the Craigieburn line, amounting to 77 extra trips per week. Its peaks remain at every 16 minutes. The 2026 state budget funded a study of the line's duplication and extension to permit improved frequency.
* Sandringham line is the biggest winner in this timetable change with three main improvements. These include cutting its 40 minute Sunday morning gaps to 20 minutes, improving weekday interpeak frequency from 15 to 10 minutes and through running it to Southern Cross, North Melbourne, Footscray, Newport and beyond. Through running will hopefully also mean nicer platforms at Flinders St with shorter walking distances.
The government's release groups Werribee, Laverton, Williamstown and Sandringham as getting more than 180 extra services per week. Accidentally or otherwise, this grouping obscures the fact that the vast majority of the extra trips will be at the Sandringham (eastern) end, not the western (Werribee) end.
* The Werribee line will gain some extra peak frequency plus resumed direct access to Richmond, South Yarra and beyond. Like Sandringham, this was funded in the 2025 State Budget. But unlike Sandringham these upgrades do not extend to a 10 minute off-peak weekday frequency. Like with the Metro Tunnel's West Footscray turnback, eastern sections of through lines tend to get the higher off-peak frequencies.
The May 2025 announcement was 2 extra trains per hour in the morning and afternoon peaks, increasing service from every 10 to every 7.5 minutes on average. This is delivered for one hour in the mornings and one hour in the afternoons. A welcome early morning trip (which qualifies for free Early Bird travel) is added at 6:22am. However the new timetable does not fill the 24 minute gap after 7:46pm (caused by the weeknight transition from express to via Altona running).
A summary of peak direction trips (times at Werribee) is below. The new timetable adds three morning trips and two afternoon trips, or 25 extra trips per week.
Connecting Sandringham to the Werribee end partly restores the cross-city group that was served by the Frankston line prior to it returning to the City Loop when the Metro Tunnel started. The reason why I say partly is that whereas this group ran every 10 minutes every day when it ran from Frankston, weekend cross-city service from Sandringham will be only every 20 minutes. This low weekend frequency reduces direct access to the MCG from the west and makes the Metro Tunnel a net negative for South Yarra due to a reduced service.
Cross-city running is a good concept that works in other cities (and Melbourne prior to the City Loop). It was brought back about 15 years ago to optimise track use. But we never quite perfected it with transposals, disruptions, shutdowns and conflicting passenger information common. Restoring reliable cross-city running is not just a timetable change but a cultural and operational one for DTP and Metro Trains. Ultimately it could become a second Metro line in the form of the Werribee Fast Rail concept I discussed here.
* The Mernda line and most of the Hurstbridge line have their maximum waits reduced from 40 to 30 minutes due to Sunday mornings improving from every 40 to every 20 minutes. Along with the other lines' improvements these almost entirely remove the network's remaining 40 minute Sunday morning frequencies, at least after about 7:30 or 8am. The 30 minute maximum wait arises from evening timetables which remain half-hourly. Both weekend evening and Sunday morning uplifts for Mernda and Hurstbridge were funded in the 2026 state budget but they found a way to bring forward the latter (possibly as a pre-election sweetener). This needed just 8 extra weekly trips per line, indicating how cheap it is to remove irritants like infrequent Sunday morning service from timetables.
Speaking of pre-election sweeteners, Ringwood (but not Belgrave or Lilydale) get one extra trip on Friday nights and another on Saturday, amounting to just two trips per week to busy stations that have not seen any service uplift for a decade.
This is embarrassing for a government that has done many disruptive level crossing removals in the area but not returned any favours in increased service. Unless they can cobble up a hasty timetable change in November, the 2026 Budget funding for additional weeknight services may have come through too late to help their electoral fortunes in the eastern suburbs.
This is embarrassing for a government that has done many disruptive level crossing removals in the area but not returned any favours in increased service. Unless they can cobble up a hasty timetable change in November, the 2026 Budget funding for additional weeknight services may have come through too late to help their electoral fortunes in the eastern suburbs.
Source: Government media release & Transport Victoria timetables
It is worth noting that most of the above service increases could have been done at any time in the last few decades. That is they were not dependent on infrastructure, new trains or level crossing removals. Their timing was more likely a political choice, possibly to improve messaging about the benefits of major projects.
Previous premier Jacinta Allan promised "A new timetable everywhere" for February 1 when in fact only the Metro Tunnel lines and Frankston got anything significant on that date.
The 23 August 2026 timetable fully delivers on five lines and partly delivers on two more.
The 23 August 2026 timetable fully delivers on five lines and partly delivers on two more.
The two part delivered lines and all four not delivered lines are likely to have new timetables, funded in the 2026 budget, in 2027. However even after that these six lines will remain with 30 minute maximum gaps at certain times (weeknights for the Clifton Hill group and interpeak weekdays/weekends for the Burnley group) as this year's budget did not include these. The same goes for Craigieburn and Upfield ten minute interpeak services.
A silver linking has been better than expected progress on removing 40 minute gaps. Back in February it appeared that Sandringham would get 10 minute weekday interpeak frequencies but remain at every 40 minutes on Sunday mornings. Fortunately sense has prevailed and the timetable includes a boost to every 20 minutes. The same can be said for Mernda and Hurstbridge (to Eltham) that get Sunday morning frequency doubled only three months after the budget that funded them.
Bus service changes
Some metropolitan bus routes get new timetables on 23 August.
Route 561, a major route across the north serving La Trobe University, will get a major weeknight improvement to run every 20 minutes until late.
Another major east-west route, the 390 from Craigieburn to Mernda, gets a Saturday evening lift from every 30 to every 20 minutes. This creates a case where service late on a Saturday evening (every 20 min) is twice as frequent as midday Saturdays where services remain every 40 minutes. Presumably this is to connect with evening trains at Craigieburn which get improved to every 20 min.
Interestingly Craigieburn routes like 529 and 533 appear not to get similar upgrades with these remaining at every 30 min at night.
513 and 514 get what appear to be minor tweaks, though these do not address other problems with their timetables.
A significant number of regional city buses and coaches will get time changes to retain connections.
V/Line service upgrades
The V/Line website explains their 23 August changes well.
* Shepparton and Seymour are the big winners with some overdue upgrades. Shepparton improves to every 9 weekday services and 5 weekend services per day with trains replacing some coach trips. That's 48 extra trips per week on a historically underserved line.
Seymour, which is increasingly a growth area line due to stations at locations like Donnybrook, gets an even hourly service on weekends with late finishes. Weekend trains will also stop at Craigieburn. However weeknight service gets less attention with large gaps remaining.
Seymour, which is increasingly a growth area line due to stations at locations like Donnybrook, gets an even hourly service on weekends with late finishes. Weekend trains will also stop at Craigieburn. However weeknight service gets less attention with large gaps remaining.
* The Geelong line has 40 services per week extended to Waurn Ponds. This is a step forward. However it does not fully resolve the weekday / weekend differences at Waurn Ponds. That is Waurn Ponds enjoys a 20 minute weekend service but its weekday frequency remains at 40 minutes.
In addition ten peak services will run to Wyndham Vale each week. The use of nine car (up from six car) should hopefully relieve crowding. These changes will come ahead of the opening of West Tarneit Station on Sunday 13 September.
In addition ten peak services will run to Wyndham Vale each week. The use of nine car (up from six car) should hopefully relieve crowding. These changes will come ahead of the opening of West Tarneit Station on Sunday 13 September.
Some other V/Line times will change. Some peak Traralgon line trips will start/finish at Flinders St Station instead of Southern Cross. On the coach side there will be some additional South Gippsland services.
Watch the video
Watch the video
Conclusion
These frequency upgrades are exactly the type that will make the Melbourne rail network more useful for diverse trips across the week, not just 9-5 weekday CBD commutes. They deliver 20 minute maximum waits for Craigieburn and Upfield while almost eliminating 40 minute Sunday morning gaps across the network. In addition Sandringham will join lines to Watergardens, Dandenong, Frankston, Newport and Clifton Hill in enjoying 10 minute off-peak weekday service.
To complete the job more upgrades like them are needed, not just those funded in the 2026 State Budget but also further improvements to cut maximum waits across the network to 20 minutes followed by a progressive roll-out of more ten minute service.
