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Sunshine

Sunshine

Hampshire Road in the Sunshine town centre, September 2016
Hampshire Road, Sunshine, September 2016, looking south. Sunshine Plaza is on the left. Photograph by Reinthal, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.

Sunshine is a suburb in Melbourne’s west, in Brimbank City Council. Sunshine station is on the Sunbury line. The photograph is Hampshire Road in September 2016, the town centre rather than the station.

What is changing

Melbourne Airport Rail stage 1 is rebuilding the station and more than 6 km of track from West Footscray to Albion. Big Build calls the rebuilt station a superhub. The February 2026 designs include two new platforms for regional trains, a longer concourse, a rebuilt bus interchange, and new forecourts. The same designs take a walking and cycling link across the rail line from the Sunshine Station Masterplan.

That stage does not include trains to the airport. Big Build’s target for the West Footscray to Albion works, including the station, is 2030.

Brimbank treats the station as the centre of a priority precinct. In October 2022 the state released a Sunshine Station Precinct Masterplan. The council records that announcement as a $143 million first stage, tied to Melbourne Airport Rail. That is not the package now being built. The rail works under way are the separate West Footscray to Albion upgrade, described in a February 2026 fact sheet as a joint investment of more than $4 billion. The council’s Sunshine Priority Precinct Vision 2050 says the precinct could double its residents and jobs by 2050. That is a planning aim, not a count of homes approved or built.

Recent changes

  • September 2026. Soil testing around the station, scheduled from 29 September to 14 October 2026, between 7am and 6pm. A notice dated 22 September 2026 sets it in the rail reserve between Anderson Road and the station, then in the Station Place bus area, the Sun Crescent car park, and the western car park. It is preparation for construction, not the new station.
  • April 2026. Boring started on a jet-fuel pipeline tunnel, about 2 km, between Sunshine and Albion. The existing pipe is being moved about 30 metres underground so the new platforms and concourse can be built. Big Build, 13 April 2026.

Transport

Sunshine station is on the Sunbury line. The stage 1 designs add two platforms for regional services and realign the Sunbury line between Sunshine and West Footscray. Metropolitan trains already run through the station. A service to Melbourne Airport is a later stage.

Major projects

Melbourne Airport Rail is under construction. Stage 1 is the West Footscray to Albion upgrade, including the Sunshine station works. It does not reach the airport. The longer account is Sunshine is becoming Melbourne’s western transport hub.

2021 Census

People usually resident 9,445
Median age 35
Private dwellings 3,984
People per household 2.6
Median weekly household income $1,566

These figures are for the suburb, not for the City of Brimbank. On the same release the Victorian median age was 38, and the Victorian average household was 2.5 people.

References