The rail line would have up to 12 new stations, cost upwards of $50 billion to build, and carry hundreds of thousands of passengers daily when it opened. Loading But it would take upwards of three decades to build, leading critics to question whether the plan was released as much to help Premier Daniel Andrews’ electoral fortunes this November as to improve transport in a growing city. In Box Hill announcing the partnership with federal Labor, Mr Andrews said the $600 million pool of money would be spent on design, pre-construction and engineering work. The combined cash meant the project’s 2022 start date could be brought forward, he said. Mr Andrews would not detail exactly how the $600 million would be spent when pressed. "Obviously twice the planning, design, engineering and pre-construction funding means that'll be able to get twice as much done," he said.

Loading Replay Replay video Play video Play video While there has been much support among planners for the concept, many have questioned the extraordinary secrecy the project was conceived in. The suburban rail loop was planned within the office of Development Victoria rather than the transport department, and was not raised in cabinet before its announcement. Experts say some elements of the plan make sense but infrastructure priorities needed to be decided in public view. Victoria doesn't have a long-term transport strategy, despite state legislation demanding one exist.

Federal Opposition Leader Bill Shorten, federal MP Anthony Albanese, Premier Daniel Andrews and Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan on Sunday announcing joint funding for the suburban rail loop plan. Credit:AAP “Yes planning for the future is very worthwhile,” said civil and traffic engineer Des Grogan. “But it must be properly considered.” Mr Grogan is an engineer with 40 years' experience in Victoria, and worked on many of the state’s biggest plans over that time. He was a member of the state’s expert body advising the planning minister, and worked on the East West Link panel hearings among others. Mr Grogan said an orbital rail loop was a “thought bubble” that would “clearly not produce the best outcome for taxpayers” because many other projects would deliver more benefits. Among them he named the “extension of the Glen Waverley train line, providing more trains, upgrading signalling, using car parking at racecourses and even running commuter trains from Flemington Racecourse and the Showgrounds train stations, along with improved bus services”.

He said simpler but less politically “announceable” projects would achieve more than the suburban rail loop quicker, and with less disruption. And he questioned the proposed cost of recent business cases put forward by the state government. “At an average of $450 per hour, 40 people working a 40-hour week over a seven-week period would cost about $5 million,” he said. This would be sufficient to complete a “competent” business case, he said. Mr Andrews has repeatedly promised business cases on big projects costing tens of millions of dollars to produce. Mr Grogan said the secrecy behind the suburban rail loop’s conception set a terrible precedent.

Only four ministers even knew of the project’s existence before it was announced: the Premier, Treasurer Tim Pallas, Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan and Special Minister of State Gavin Jennings. Key to the project's planning was Tom Considine, now at Development Victoria but until 2016 Mr Pallas’ chief of staff. It is understood that even a high-ranking bureaucrat within the Transport Department who was away on the day of the rail line's announcement had to be contacted by their officers, who were unsure how to respond. The Transport Department was not told of the plan because of perceptions it would not welcome a project of its massive scope, and would attempt to block its development within government. Infrastructure Victoria – set up to take the politics out of planning for major transport projects, and reporting to Mr Jennings – was also not told.

Its $500,000-a-year chief executive Michel Masson and his board, whose expertise cost Victorians $1 million last financial year, found out about the project at the same time media did. John Stanley, a transport planning expert at Sydney University who has advised the Andrews government, said the suburban rail loop seemed an attractive proposition, but it was also part of a “project-to-project approach”. Professor Stanley said that while a circumferential rail line was a good idea, building it when many of the suburbs it would pass through were very low density made the entire project hard to justify. The first stage of the project, better linking Monash University by rail to Cheltenham, made excellent sense. “Does it make strategic sense to do more than that? Maybe not, but that’s what has to be decided,” he said. He said the confidentiality around its planning was far from ideal.