Rail Shutdown Closes Sydney-Melbourne Line for 74.5 Hours
The Australian Rail Track Corporation is running a 74.5-hour closure on the Chullora to Tottenham Junction corridor, with coaches replacing trains.
Updated on Nov. 9, 2026 in Transportation
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The Australian Rail Track Corporation began a 74.5-hour shutdown of the Sydney-Melbourne rail line, running from 11:30 pm on Friday 6 November 2026 to 2 am on Tuesday 10 November. NSW TrainLink and V/Line services are replaced by coaches for the duration of the works.
Why it matters
The works are designed to remove temporary speed restrictions and improve signalling reliability on one of the country's key freight and passenger corridors. The closure is the second major Sydney-Melbourne rail shutdown in eight weeks.
The November closure involves about 1,000 rail specialists at 122 sites, a smaller footprint than the September closure's 176 sites and around 1,300 specialists. The works sit within a A$2.8 billion Network Investment Program, with A$190 million allocated annually to maintenance.
The players
Australian Rail Track Corporation (ARTC)
ARTC is the government-owned company that manages and maintains the national interstate rail network connecting Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Adelaide.
The details
Sectional closures are staggered between Albury, Cootamundra and Tottenham Junction, including a 40-hour Albury to Tottenham Junction closure and a Cootamundra to Albury closure. Work includes new ballast at four major sites from Picton to Joppa Junction, more than 25 kilometres of resurfacing between Sydney and Cootamundra, and nearly two kilometres of rail replacement at nine locations around Moss Vale.
Timeline
Previous Sydney-Melbourne closure ran 11-15 September 2026.
Main closure runs from 11:30 pm Friday 6 November to 2 am Tuesday 10 November 2026.
Albury to Tottenham Junction sectional closure runs 7 to 8 November 2026.
Signalling upgrades at Goulburn are planned for March 2027.
Corridor Upgrades
The closure is tied to the A$59.9 million Southern Highlands Overtaking Opportunities project, which carries about 3 million tonnes of freight a year and has been designed to cut 88 minutes from Sydney-Melbourne freight journeys. The works extend that corridor program across more than 170 kilometres of track.
Passengers on NSW TrainLink and V/Line services between Sydney and Melbourne will need to travel by coach from 6 to 10 November 2026. Freight operators should expect the corridor to be unavailable for the full 74.5-hour window.
The takeaway
Temporary closures of this length are a trade-off for longer-term reliability on the Sydney-Melbourne corridor. Travellers and freight users who plan around the outage window will be least disrupted.
What happens next
Signalling upgrades at Goulburn are planned for March 2027, with further works on the Southern Highlands corridor to follow.
Further reading
For more on how rail and freight networks are managed, see the Transportation section.
Source note: This article includes information reported by Railway Supply.
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