Regional Rail Link (RRL) is the name of a project to build a 47.5-kilometre (29.5 mi) length of railway through the western suburbs of Melbourne, Victoria.

[6][7] A separate line for regional trains between Geelong and Melbourne, then called the "Tarneit Link", was included as a possible long-term rail option in the Bracks government's 2006 Meeting Our Transport Challenges report.

[10] The project was expanded and re-branded as the Regional Rail Link when announced as part of the Brumby Government's Victorian Transport Plan of December 2008.

[19] A Government spokeswoman said "every effort" had been made to contact the households affected, but bureaucrats had abandoned their planned visit to deliver the bad news because they did not want to be filmed by the media.

[citation needed] In February 2011, the incoming Baillieu government announced the project was under review, citing poor planning and a blow-out in costs.

[22] In November 2011, the secretary of the Victorian Department of Transport, Jim Betts, admitted that the lack of a mature plan, and the urgency of spending the money provided by the federal government as part of its economic stimulus package,[23] meant that there had been a rush to finalise the financial arrangements of the scheme.

No reason was given for that decision, and after the RRL opened, passengers wanting to get to North Melbourne had to alight at Footscray or Southern Cross stations and catch another train.

The reports also raised concerns about the Footscray Park Railway Reserve where, EPA predicted, the public would be exposed to dangerous levels of nitrogen dioxide from increased diesel train traffic.

Due to a rolling stock shortage, some Ballarat trains had fewer carriages than before, and timekeeping of services worsened, despite the promise of greater reliability after the RRL opened.

[53] Following the opening of the Regional Rail Link, V/Line trains on the Ballarat line failed to meet punctuality targets for 14 consecutive months.

The extra services introduced as a result of RRL meant the crossing gates were down for longer, which heavily increased traffic in the area and drew criticism from residents and lobby groups.

An independent report done into the wheel wear issues found the major cause of the problem was tight curves on the RRL route, particularly on the North Melbourne flyover (NMFO), which was upgraded as part of RRL as a means of allowing V/line trains to travel through North Melbourne on a separate route to Metro trains[56] In May 2018, the Victorian Auditor-General completed an audit on the Regional Rail Link, titled "Assessing Benefits from the Regional Rail Link Project"[44] While acknowledging that the project has had significant benefits, some of them unexpected, the Auditor-General slammed the State Government's of the time, the former Victorian Department of Transport and the Regional Rail Link Authority for its mismanagement of the project, particularly in the planning stages.

He also said that planners had not adequately predicted how many people would use the RRL after its opening, and that the lines designed maximum capacity of 18 trains per-hour would make it difficult to add the number of services which will be required in the future.