Ellenbrook line
The Ellenbrook line, known as the Morley–Ellenbrook line during construction, is a suburban railway line in Perth, Western Australia, which is operated by the Public Transport Authority as part of the Transperth system. The line branches from the Midland line at Bayswater station and heads north-north-west to serve five stations along a route to Ellenbrook. Ellenbrook line services continue west of Bayswater station alongside Midland and Airport line services to terminate at Perth station in the central business district.
Land for a transit line to Ellenbrook was reserved in the 1990s during the initial development of Ellenbrook. A railway line to Ellenbrook was promised by both major political parties in the leadup to the 2008 state election, but was cancelled by the newly-elected Liberal government after the election. After the Labor Party won the 2017 state election, planning for the Ellenbrook line restarted as part of the wider Metronet project. Enabling works within the Tonkin Highway median strip were undertaken by the Tonkin Gap project, which started construction in November 2020 and was completed in early 2024. The main Ellenbrook line contract was awarded to Laing O'Rourke in October 2020 and construction began in January 2022. The main contract's budget was A$1.123billion, which increased to $1.651billion in 2023. Track laying was completed by July 2024 and all stations were complete by November, allowing the Ellenbrook line to open on 8 December 2024.
Branching from the Midland line at Bayswater station, the Ellenbrook line enters the median strip of Tonkin Highway, the location of Morley and Noranda stations. After exiting the highway, the line runs along the southern and eastern edges of Whiteman Park, the location of Ballajura and Whiteman Park stations, before entering Ellenbrook to terminate at Ellenbrook station. The Ellenbrook line has a frequency of five trains per hour during peak and four trains per hour off peak, operated by B-series trains. The travel time from Ellenbrook to Perth is 31 minutes. All stations along the branch are fully accessible and have platforms; train lengths are limited by platforms between Perth and Bayswater. The branch was forecast to have 11,753 boardings per weekday upon opening, increasing to 18,070 boardings per weekday in 2031, but as of July 2025, the branch has 5,364 boardings per weekday.
History
Corridor reservation
The 1955 Plan for the Metropolitan Region, Perth and Fremantle, also known as the Stephenson–Hepburn Report, proposed a railway line branching off the Eastern Railway at Bayswater, then heading north through Morley to reach Walter Road, then north-west to terminate near Wanneroo Road. The branch was planned to have six stations and projected to have 7,000 daily passengers. The report also proposed the Beechboro–Gosnells Highway, now known as Tonkin Highway. When the Metropolitan Region Scheme was adopted in 1963, the land for the proposed highway was reserved but not the land for the proposed railway. Tonkin Highway between Railway Parade and Reid Highway was opened in stages between 1984 and 1991.The North-East Corridor Structure Plan, published in 1994, called for the rezoning of Ellenbrook for urban development and the reservation of a public transport corridor from the proposed Ellenbrook town centre and along Lord Street to Bassendean on the Midland line. The Metropolitan Region Scheme was amended later that year to reserve the corridor from Ellenbrook to Reid Highway. The corridor south of Reid Highway to Bassendean was not reserved due to a large number of objections, which prompted the government to commission the North-East Corridor Transit Route Reserve Study to determine a route south of the Reid Highway/Lord Street junction. The study outlined four possible routes:
- To Bayswater via the Tonkin Highway median strip and the northern side of Reid Highway. The northern side of Reid Highway was selected as the highway's median strip was not wide enough for the railway and the southern side had housing that was too close to the highway. Potential station locations were Walter Road/Morley Drive, Benara Road, Beechboro Road, Altone Road, and Marshall Road.
- To Bassendean via the western side of Lord Street. This option would have required a tunnel to exit the Midland line corridor and pass under several houses. Potential station locations were Morley Drive, Benara Road, and Marshall Road.
- To Midland via an extension of Benara Road through Caversham. This route had the Ellenbrook line end at Midland station, with a transfer required to get to Perth station. Potential station locations were West Swan Road and Marshall Road.
- To Middle Swan via the Reid Highway median strip and from Middle Swan to Midland via the freight railway. This would operate as an extension of the Midland line. Potential station locations were Great Eastern Highway, Morrison Road, Stratton, Great Northern Highway, West Swan Road, and Marshall Road.
Proposals
Following the success of the Mandurah line, which opened in late 2007, Premier of Western Australia Alan Carpenter committed a week before the September 2008 state election to build a railway line to Ellenbrook for A$850million if the Labor Party were re-elected, with construction starting in 2012 and finishing in 2015. Opposition and Liberal Party leader Colin Barnett also committed to building a railway to Ellenbrook, but following the Liberal Party's election victory, the Public Transport Authority advised Transport Minister Simon O'Brien that bus rapid transit would be more adaptable and could follow roads through built-up areas, unlike a railway line. In April 2009, the PTA cancelled a route definition study that had been commissioned by the Carpenter government and commenced a feasibility study due to doubts over the line's viability. New Transport Minister Troy Buswell said in May 2011 that the Liberal Party only committed to the Ellenbrook line because it believed that the Carpenter government had done a feasibility study, and that a subsequent study found that patronage would not be high enough for a rail line. Barnett said that he had only committed to building it if elected to a second term.In July 2011, the government's Public Transport in Perth in 2031 plan committed to a BRT service between Ellenbrook and Bassendean station, ending plans for a rail line to Ellenbrook. By August 2012, the design of the BRT route was underway. Ahead of the March 2013 state election, Barnett again promised to build a rail line to Ellenbrook if re-elected, which he reiterated during an election debate on the ABC. In February 2013, Barnett reneged on that promise, saying "when we looked at it and we took advice from the Department of Transport and others, it was clear that rail line was ahead of its time". Meanwhile, Labor leader Mark McGowan committed to building the Ellenbrook line as part of Labor's proposed Metronet project. Days before the election, Barnett announced that the BRT project had been cancelled due to costs increasing from $61million to $110million. The Liberals won the election.
In the May 2016 state budget, the Ellenbrook BRT project was revived with a cheaper route. Estimated to cost $49million, the new route was a dedicated busway along Lord Street between the Ellenbrook town centre and Marshall Road. There would have been bus stations in the Ellenbrook town centre, at Gnangara Road, and at Marshall Road, with a future station at Youle-Dean Road. The busway would have been grade separated at Gnangara Road, Park Street and Youle-Dean Road, and buses would have continued south of Marshall Road along regular streets to Bassendean and Midland stations. Sections of Lord Street would have been upgraded and realigned as well. A request for tenders was released in July 2016 and in November 2016, CPB Contractors was selected as the preferred proponent, with the cost having risen to $55million.
In February 2016, Transport Minister Dean Nalder revealed the government was considering an underground rail line from the Perth central business district to Morley via Edith Cowan University in Mount Lawley, with an eventual extension to Ellenbrook. Labor criticised the tunnel for being too expensive. The Transport@3.5 million plan, published in July 2016, said a railway line to Ellenbrook would not be built until after 2050, with the tunnel from Perth to Morley to be built as the first stage of a line to East Wanneroo; the Ellenbrook line would later be built as a spur off that line. A week later, Barnett backtracked, saying that a rail line to Ellenbrook would be constructed "well before" 2050. The final version of the Transport@3.5 million report, published in February 2017, said that a rail line to Ellenbrook would be built before 2050. Labor again promised to build the Ellenbrook line for $863million as part of its revised Metronet project, with construction beginning in 2019 and finishing in 2022.
Labor won the March 2017 state election. Afterwards, Premier Mark McGowan announced the cancellation of the Ellenbrook BRT project as it was redundant to the Ellenbrook line. The contract with CPB was renegotiated into a realignment and upgrade of Lord Street. Upon the project's completion in April 2019, Lord Street was renamed Drumpellier Drive. As part of the NorthLink WA project, the intersections between Tonkin Highway and Collier Road, Morley Drive, Benara Road, and Reid Highway were grade separated and the highway was extended north, providing the corridor for the Ellenbrook line to be built.
Planning
committed $500million in the April 2018 federal budget for the Ellenbrook line, then-known as the Morley–Ellenbrook line, subject to a favourable assessment by the independent statutory authority Infrastructure Australia.The finalised route for the Ellenbrook line was revealed in August 2019, with the state government saying that it considered 100 possible routes. The main engineering challenge of the final alignment were the tunnels to enter and exit Tonkin Highway. The number and location of stations were finalised, with there being five stations: Morley, Noranda, Ballajura, Whiteman Park, and Ellenbrook. It was also announced that the scope of an existing project to rebuild Bayswater station would be increased to add extra platforms for the Ellenbrook line. The expected year of opening was 2022–23.
Consideration was given to having the Ellenbrook line travel along Tonkin Highway on the western side of Whiteman Park, but this route would not have allowed for a station at the entrance to Whiteman Park or a station to serve Henley Brook, Dayton, Brabham or West Swan. The design allows for a branch to extend north along Tonkin Highway past Ballajura. Consideration was also given to running the line along Reid Highway, as was planned in the 1990s, instead of the southern side of Whiteman Park, but the Reid and Tonkin Highway interchange constructed as part of NorthLink WA made that route difficult to construct. Another option considered was tunnelling the Ellenbrook line between Bayswater station and Tonkin Highway instead of building a viaduct. Tunnelling was rejected due to the high cost, steep slopes required, the Bayswater Main Drain being in the way, and disruption to the Airport and Midland lines. During further design, the height of the viaduct was reduced due to complaints from nearby residents. The route through the southern and eastern parts of Whiteman was criticised by the shadow minister for transport, Libby Mettam, who said that it broke the terms of an agreement made when Lew Whiteman and other landowners sold the land to the state government, which said that the land must remain public open space. The state government retorted by saying that the previous Liberal government had planned for the land to become a cemetery and a sporting complex.
The environmental assessment was divided into two packages. The Bayswater to Malaga environmental assessment application was submitted to the state's Environmental Protection Authority in November 2019, which determined the following month that this portion did not require assessment by the EPA. The Malaga to Ellenbrook environmental assessment application was submitted to the EPA in December 2019, which approved the application in November 2020. Important environmental considerations included the clearing of vegetation, impacts on Bennett Brook and nearby wetlands, and the habitat of Carter's freshwater mussels and black cockatoos.
In February 2020, the Parliament of Western Australia passed an enabling act for the Ellenbrook line, authorising the line's construction. Infrastructure Australia released its assessment of the Ellenbrook line in May 2020, adding the project to the Infrastructure Priority List as a "Priority Project", enabling it to receive $500million in federal funding. Infrastructure Australia described the project as a "marginal" case, saying that urban renewal would be crucial to the project achieving the desired patronage levels and that the government had overestimated projected patronage growth and travel times, but that the Ellenbrook corridor had high population growth and was one of Perth's only corridors without a railway line. In June 2020, the project definition plan was released, which said that the Ellenbrook line would be divided into four programs of work: the Bayswater station project, the Tonkin Gap project, the main Ellenbrook line works, and forward works.