Most of the $3 billion the Gillard government has committed towards building a new rail tunnel in Melbourne would not begin to flow until next decade, suggesting train commuters face several years of worsening overcrowding no matter which party wins the federal election.

As federal Labor and the Victorian Coalition sparred over when work on the multibillion-dollar Melbourne Metro rail tunnel might proceed, state Public Transport Minister Terry Mulder told a parliamentary hearing $2 billion of the promised federal outlay was scheduled to be delivered after 2019.

Federal Infrastructure Minister Anthony Albanese accused the Napthine government in parliamentary question time of purposefully ignoring the extensive work that had been jointly undertaken on the project. He brandished two large folders of correspondence to show that the state government had been closely involved with the development of the proposal.

But Mr Mulder said some of the correspondence was so fanciful in regards to funding the tunnel it ''might as well have had a dozen Tattslotto tickets stapled to it''.