>>1342351Still going to be express City -> Sunshine -> Airport, seeing as how it's the only thing the state and feds can agree on. In the future SRL will link the airport east to Broadmeadows and the eastern suburbs and west along the rail link to Sunshine, but apart from that the western part of SRL is still a thoughtbubble atm.
Sunshine is going to be an important part of the Western Rail Plan, with sparks to Wyndham Vale + Melton, regional rail to Ballarat + Geelong and a new track pair from Sunshine-City. That would allow the separation of train services onto dedicated track pairs for MM1/Sunbury, RRL and WV/Melton which would hopefully mean better frequency and reliability as well. Pic is an idea of what rail in the west could look like after everything currently in the works is completed.
There might be more improvements like plugging the gaps in between rail corridors (like routing SRL Sunshine-Laverton-Point Cook instead of along RRL, or Metro 3 from the Airport-Highpoint-City) but those could just as easily be served by better tram and bus links. I also saw an interesting idea a while back that involved routing Bendigo and Seymour V/Line trains off suburban lines by tunnelling them to the airport and then along the rail link to the city, which would free paths for more services to Sunbury and Craigieburn.
