Work to improve the safety of a notorious railway crossing at Maldon begins this week, following a concerning series of near misses.
The level crossing where the Maldon-Bendigo Road crosses the Victorian Goldfields Railway tourist railway is to be rebuilt to significantly enhance the safety of the crossing, the scene of several recent close calls involving motorists and trains.
The upgrade, being undertaken with Department of Transport funding, will include rebuilding the rail track through the crossing, re-surfacing the roadway and fitting the crossing with automatic flashing lights and bells, VGR civil manager John Shaw told the Express on Friday.
“The first part of the upgrade will involve closing the crossing for two days while the old track is dug out, new track is laid and the road surface is rebuilt,” Mr Shaw said.
The road over the crossing will be closed from 7.30am this Thursday to 5pm Friday.
Detours for road traffic will be put in place via Reef Street and Allans Road.
“We’ve had a lot of near misses on the crossing there,” Mr Shaw said.
“The most recent was probably about two months ago.”
“We’ll have the road closed for two days (from this Thursday) and over that time we will completely replace the crossing itself.
“V/Line are the contractors doing the work and VGR are the subcontractors for the crossing works on the road.”
The works are being enabled with Department of Transport funding in the order of $600,000 to $700,000, the VGR civil manager said.
The first part of the upgrade will involve replacing the rail track through the crossing and re-surfacing the roadway with new rail track laid on concrete sleepers and the roadway finished with a deep layer of hot mix asphalt.
“This will give road users a much smoother ride as they cross the railway,” Mr Shaw said.
“It’s going to very significantly improve the safety of the crossing.
“We’ve had to reduce the train speeds down to basically walking pace at the crossing to avoid danger.”
Once the crossing itself has been rebuilt, the next step will be installing flashing light warning signals, which will occur over the next few months.
That work, being carried out by V/Line, won’t significantly affect road traffic, and the lights are expected to be installed and functioning by the end of this financial year.
In August 2018 the VGR experienced a particularly harrowing close call.
The VGR’s Murder on the Orient Express movie train gave passengers more than they bargained for when the train was involved in the near miss.
The movie was being screened as the VGR heritage train travelled from Castlemaine and was nearing Maldon at 8.50pm when a car sped through the level crossing narrowly missing the train.
VGR’s Andrew Reynolds at the time said the incident was possibly the closest near miss ever encountered at the dangerous crossing.
“This is probably now the most dangerous unprotected level crossing remaining in Victoria,” Mr Reynolds said at the time.
