Bellarine Railway will receive more than $35,000 in state government funding to support vegetation and pest management along the rail corridor.
The railway is one of 16 tourist and heritage rail operators and museums to share in $620,000 government grants.
Bellarine Railway will receive $35,771 to manage vegetation along its route, which spans 16km from Queenscliff to Drysdale.
“The volunteers at the Bellarine Railway work tirelessly to offer visitors to the area a unique tourist attraction that brings thousands of people a year to the area,” Member for Bellarine Lisa Neville said.
“This funding will help them carry out their essential work to manage vegetation, which is particularly important as we approach the warmer summer months.”
Groups receiving the funding were assessed by VicTrack and the Department of Transport.
In their applications, groups had to demonstrate that they would use the funding for projects including repairing, restoring, or refurbishing state owned rail assets; improving access to assets; delivering approved projects on buildings or rolling stock; and works in the rail corridor such as weed control or vegetation management.
The state government is implementing Preserving our rail history – a blueprint for the future – a strategy to help secure the future of the tourist and heritage rail sector.
Through this, tourist and heritage rail groups are being supported with matters including governance, leasing, growing visitor numbers and developing processes to allocate rolling stock and other assets.
Up to $2.2 million of funding and grants is being provided to the sector to support the implementation of the blueprint.
As part of this, last year tourist and heritage rail operators received $1 million to help them re-establish their operations and cover costs after they were unable to run their services during COVID-19 restrictions.
The funding this year was offered to the 16 tourist and heritage rail and tram operators, and more widely to rail museums.
