Landsborough Station upgrade plans revealed

The Landsborough community received an early Christmas present today, with the unveiling of plans for a major upgrade to the town’s historic rail station.

Minister for Transport and Main Roads, Paul Lucas, unveiled the design with Member for Glasshouse, Carolyn Male, and said the project was part of significant upgrades to meet future needs of the growing area.

“The population in the north coast area is expected to increase by 150,000 people over the next 20 years so it’s important our infrastructure meets growing demand,” Mr Lucas said.

“The existing station, built in the 1890s, is an important piece of local heritage and one of the oldest surviving stations in the state, so Queensland Rail is taking a lot of care to protect its heritage value.”

Member for Glasshouse Carolyn Male said upgraded features include a new platform and waiting shelters, new lighting, security, toilets and rainwater tanks.

“As well as having new entry ramps that will provide better access for disabled users and mums and dads with prams, the work will also include a new car park and bus interchange,” Ms Male said.

“Early works are complete and the installation of pathway lighting will be finished shortly so it’s full steam ahead for major construction work early in the New Year.

“It’s expected the Landsborough station facelift – worth a total of $2.4 million – will be completed by November next year.”

The upgrade will complement work on the $275 million duplication of track between Caboolture and Beerburrum with construction due to start in the first half of next year.

“Currently, a single winding rail track runs between Caboolture and Beerburrum stations,” Mr Lucas said.

“This upgrade of 13.7km of rail line between Caboolture and Beerburrum will service both passenger and freight customers.

“Work should be completed in 2009 and will include a second rail line, realignment of some local roads and an upgrade of Elimbah and Beerburrum stations.”

“We’re also planning to realign and duplicate the 17km of track between Beerburrum and Landsborough, which is expected to be completed by 2012.”

Mr Lucas today also inspected one of 12 new smart card ticket machines switched on this week at north coast stations.

“The new machines give commuters access to ticket machines 24 hours a day that accept notes and coins, and have advanced touch screen technology.

“Previously, there were no train stations north of Caboolture that had ticket vending machines.

Mr Lucas said the switching on of the north coast ticket machines was another key step in the roll-out of the new smart card ticketing program.

“TransLink is currently conducting a customer pilot with around 500 public transport passengers in the Redcliffe area to make sure the system can cope with a wide range of transactions,” he said.

“We've been pleased with the results so far. We’ve had about 30,000 transactions between August and November and TransLink reports initial card reading and fare calculation functions are performing according to specifications,” Mr Lucas said.

“TransLink is now focused on fine tuning a number of issues in the back end software systems to ensure that we can account for all of the data captured across all modes of public transport.

“In late January, we’ll switch the Doomben line machines on and the remainder of the Queensland Rail network will be progressively switched on by April.”

“Sunbus buses on the SunshineCoast have been pre-wired and from February TransLink will be installing the new smart card ticket machines. Subject to testing, the smart card pilot will be extended from Redcliffe to include the SunshineCoast by April.”

TransLink had originally hoped to have the smart card system rolled out by the end of this year but now expected to have the system rolled out progressively during 2007.

Mr Lucas said experience overseas and in Western Australia and New South Wales suggested this sort of technological shift was complex, so it was important TransLink took the time now to get it right.

Mr Lucas said that while the software was undergoing rigorous testing, TransLink had rolled up its sleeves and installed smart card equipment at almost all of the 143 railway stations and had pre-wired a significant portion of the bus fleet.

“Almost 100,000 paper tickets have been issued on fare machines since we turned them on in July.”

“When the smart card system is fully operational, customers will only need to touch their card to a card reader at the start and end of each leg of their journey and the fare will be deducted from the card’s balance.

“The cards will store value for travel on buses, trains and ferries in the network.

“This is the next step in the South East Queensland public transport revolution that the Beattie Government started with the establishment of integrated ticketing and consistent fares under TransLink,” Mr Lucas said.

Media inquiries: Robert Hoge 3237 1942, Roanne Johnson 3237 1145