The regional forum for north-west Victoria will be held by Lynne Kosky, Minister for Public Transport, and community leaders hope to hear an update on the district’s passenger and freight rails feasibility study.

In another positive step, V/Line’s annual report released this week declared regional Victoria to be in a “golden era of rail” with major increases in ticket sales and train seating.

Coach patronage grew by 17.6 per cent in the past financial year, while train use increased by 9.5 per cent.

Member for Mildura Peter Crisp said the public transport bump was a good sign for Mildura and he hoped questions about the feasibility study would be answered at Thursday’s forum.

“I think (the report) does increase the chance of us getting a passenger rail, and we know patronage on the Swan Hill line has had steady growth,” Mr Crisp said.

“If V/Line is performing better there’s probably some room there.

“The V/Line report shows growing patronage of their passenger network and the loss from 2008 to 2009 went down from $15.3 million to $6.4 million, so that’s a considerable reduction.

For more of this story, purchase your copy of Monday’s Sunraysia Daily 19/10/2009.