93 slower trips on Melbourne’s busiest train lines start today

Dozens of train services on the Cranbourne and Pakenham lines will run more slowly from today.

A new timetable now in effect shows 93 trains on the two lines will run more slowly than they used to each day.

Sixteen services will run more quickly.

The delayed services will take between one and five minutes longer to reach the city, because they will spend longer at each station to account for passenger embark and disembark times.

Meanwhile, on the Melton line, a new station has opened at Cobblebank and two new services have been added.

But it’s the slower times on the city’s busiest lines in the south-east that have shadow minister David Davis accusing the government of helping Metro artificially improve its punctuality performance.

Mr Davis also says it’s hard to understand how the government could spend so much money removing nine level crossings between Caulfield and Dandenong, only for the trains to run more slowly.