Suburban Rail Loop
- Status
- Under construction
- Current stage
- SRL East, Cheltenham to Box Hill
- Stage scope
- 26 km of twin tunnels and six underground stations Victoria's Big Build
- Public cost range
- $30 billion to $34.5 billion Victorian Auditor-General, 26 August 2026SRL East, from the 2026–27 state Budget, as recorded by the Auditor-General. The same audit found the project more likely than not to exceed the upper figure.
- Train services
- Targeted for 2035 Victoria's Big BuildBig Build's target for SRL East. The audit says the authority is forecasting 31 December 2035, and that the target is at risk.
- Last checked
SRL East is the stage under construction. It runs from Cheltenham to Box Hill, and it does not include SRL North or SRL West.
A planned orbital railway. The stage under construction is SRL East: 26 kilometres of twin tunnels and six underground stations from Cheltenham to Box Hill. Victoria’s Big Build says tunnelling is under way and that trains are targeted for 2035. SRL North, from Box Hill to Melbourne Airport, and SRL West, from Sunshine to Werribee, are later sections on the same project map.
The stations already operating at Cheltenham, Clayton, Glen Waverley, and Box Hill are not those underground stations. Burwood has no metropolitan railway station. The underground station planned there, and the one called Monash at Monash University in Clayton, are not open.
The Auditor-General’s report of 26 August 2026 records the 2026–27 Budget range for SRL East as $30 billion to $34.5 billion, and finds the project more likely than not to exceed the upper figure. That range is not a cost for the full loop, so it is not stored as a single project cost. The two tunnels packages were contracted in December 2023. When the audit was tabled, the contracts to build the six stations had not been signed. On 7 September 2026 Big Build said tunnel boring machine Alice was tunnelling from Burwood toward Glen Waverley.
Melbourne Airport Rail is a separate project. Its current stage rebuilds the line from West Footscray to Albion and does not reach the airport.
The longer accounts are Suburban Rail Loop in 2026, on what has been built, approved and funded, and The Real Cost of the Suburban Rail Loop, on what the August 2026 audit says about the cost, the funding model, and the 2035 target.
- SRL East, Victoria’s Big Build. Twenty-six kilometres of twin tunnels, six stations, trains targeted for 2035.
- Suburban Rail Loop, Victoria’s Big Build. SRL North and SRL West are the later sections.
- Tunnelling underway on SRL, Victoria’s Big Build, 7 September 2026.
- Delivering the Suburban Rail Loop, Victorian Auditor-General’s Office, tabled 26 August 2026.