Ms Kealy detailed complaints this month about elderly passengers suffering long delays and facing a lack of seating when changing from buses to trains at Ararat. 

She shared more of those passenger concerns this week. 

Ms Kealy said an Edenhope woman, 73, contacted her with a experience that demonstrated public transport got worse the further west people embarked.

The woman was required to regularly travel to Geelong to see her heart specialist.

“The lady’s most recent experience was a nine-hour, one-way trip from Edenhope to Geelong,” Ms Kealy said.

“This elderly lady was required to travel on a bus from Edenhope to Horsham, a second bus to Ararat, a train to Ballarat and finally a bus to Geelong, resulting in an exhausting nine-hour trip.

“By car the same trip would take just 3.5 hours.”

Ms Kealy said by the time the resident arrived at her motel in Geelong, she was exhausted and went straight to bed to prepare for specialist appointments the following day.

She was then required to stay another night in Geelong before starting the same marathon journey home.

Ms Kealy’s prior comments about connections at Ararat prompted a spokesperson for Public Transport Minister Jacinta Allan to accused her of hypocrisy over regional rail.

“Emma Kealy was part of a government who did nothing for four years,” the spokesperson said.

“We are getting on with the job of delivering an upgrade to every regional rail line through the Regional Rail Revival, we’ve added additional services to Maryborough and Ararat and we’re delivering the Murray Basin Rail Project.”

A V-Line spokesperson said passengers could choose to wait for their connecting service in one of the two waiting rooms at Ararat station, which was staffed from 6am to 5pm daily.

Ararat Mayor Glenda McLean defended the Ararat service. 

“The additional daily train services organised by the state government from this February have been a boon to the Ararat municipality and bring so much benefit to locals going regularly to Melbourne,” Cr McLean said.