My Grandma's 1949 Railway Map! 

"Due to an administrative oversight, I wasn't born yet".... I'm really not sure I can accept that excuse. It just shows a complete lack of effort.

When I first moved to Melbourne, I had a crappy temp job preparing old planning documents to be sent to the Public Records Office. A lot of the maps were from the planning scheme of 1954. They were crazy - freeways everywhere and every single part of the state had been mapped. That job was amazing, it was in the old drill hall on A'beckett street. We'd play Radio National and walk around bare foot. There were only four of us working on it and we'd always have Friday beers. Probably my favourite job as a young map nerd. There was a planning film from 1954 we had on DVD too, I wish I could find a copy.

My great-great-grandfather was Francis Rennick who was engineer-in-chief for the Victorian railway for a period of time in its early days. Rennick station on the far east of the network was named after him (he also got Rennick state forest!) Just goes to show that the interesting history of the railways isn't lost among those of us alive today. Awesome video

whenever taitset uploads i drop everything and run to youtube it's a tradition by now

Very interesting. I still have one or two copies of that map, which I obtained as a small boy. I'm now nearly 90, and can remember memorising the stations before I was allowed to travel on my own by train to stay with country relatives!

This was fascinating Martin, thank you! I'm an old Mallee boy and when I was a kid the grain trains still ran to the silos at Kooloonong where I grew up, and the track bed was still visible running past my cousins' place at Koorkab to Yungera. My grandmother rode the trains to her job as a teacher, previously at Waitchie, west of Swan Hill, and later at Kooloonong West where she met my grandfather (he and his brother were soldier settlers after WWI). I did once ride a railmotor from Piangil to the Swan Hill Pioneer Settlement for a school outing. That would have been in the early 1970s, decades before I accidentally got interested in trains. For the record the northwest corner of Victoria was surveyed as the County of Millewa so takes in Mildura west of to the SA border, and south including a lot of what is now Murray Sunset National Park, west of the Calder Highway. The Millewa Football League is still made up of teams representing the small localities near Mildura such as Bambill, Karawinna, Meringur etc. Also, there are a few examples of the Allan truss bridges over the Murray still in use, 1 of which is at Tooleybuc, where I've crossed many times to go to high school, to visit my Mum's parents at Goodnight, and in recent years to visit my Dad's grave.

I will never forgive the closure of Warburton and Healesville. What a loss.

“Millewa South” just refers to the area. The Millewa is the entire area that the Morkalla line travels through so it isn’t one specific place. Speaking of the Morkalla line, the first kilometre of the not ripped up line is preserved on 610mm gauge and is used by a local tourist railway.

“However, I’m also aware that most of these would be enormously controversial and extremely difficult to make happen” unlike new urban motorways, which we’ve apparently decided are fine

13:33 Fun fact, there are old 1900s VR station benches in the chalet games room

My Grandma grew up in Armadale and travelled to Black Rock/Beaumaris to visit her aunt during the tramway era but never saw one. A couple years ago she moved down there and whenever I visited I always showed clues about the VR Sandy-Black Rock line (e.g. the dual roundabout at Bluff Rd/Balcombe Rd/Beach St). She always enjoyed seeing the 1950s tram and 1880s (I think) tram alignments. Another amazing video by Taitset!

One of the best videos I've seen on the history of victorian network in a long time!

Are you able to share your high res scan of the map? Would love to zoom in myself and eyeball the details, like the nerd I am. 🤓

Absolutely brilliant video with fantastic research. I often dream about life without affordable motor cars!

I still find it bemusing the way a cross-country line connecting Shepparton or Seymour-Bendigo-Ballarat-Geelong without heading to Melbourne cannot get enough passengers to justify a service, or even 1 section of such a Loop which already exists Like Geelong-Ballarat.

Tailset, your the best!!!

I'd love the rail service to Deniliquin to come back eventually, the lines are still in place!

Cracking history lesson, well presented, researched and narrated, just love that old map. I remember as a boy going to South Melbourne Markets with my aunty on Tait sets and we would also go to St Kilda, the terminus, for morning tea. Thank you Martin

Another unfinished part of the network was the Cudgewa line stopping 10-15km short (across fairly flat farmland) of Corryong, the largest town in the district.

a pigeon has toppled me from the top of the Patreon list! Great video Martin

13:30 when I saw that Furphy cart I geeked out, as a shepp (Shepparton) local the furphy carts are near and dear to my heart.

15:38 It's ashame so far they've only made so few SG VLocities as well, for them to retire all the NSets just to have so few for that one line, they should at least reopen some of these lines if they're going to keep pumping them out.

Phenomenal video! I'm always overwhelmed by these old maps and it's amazing to have its quirks clearly explained. So cool! Do you plan on releasing your scan to the public? I'd love to have access to it, the maps on google aren't very high quality without doing some digging.

Woiw, Martin! As I watched this clip, I was constantly pausing and checking against my own April 1939 VR map (hard copy full size and laminated for preservation). The Buninyong and Tatong lines have mileages for the stations, the full proposed extent of the Millewa South line was shown (but no mileage - that shown on your map answers one of my questions of long ago), the Port Welshpool tramway is shown, as well as the proposed Brodribb extension of the Orbost line that was surveyed but never built. Your commentary spurred memories of some of my railway career highlights and exploratory trips. I won't go into these now but I must get down to writing something about them and/or get Nick Anchen (or maybe you) to do a series of recordings. Incidentally, while scanning the comments I discovered we have something else in common in that my ancestry on my late mother's side includes Lowland Scot (via Dunedin, NZ so I must have a bit of Kiwi as well). Oh, and I just received your "thank you" for my comment on the Upfield line video as I was typing this. It's good to know you. Cheers again from me.🙂

They will never return trains to leongatha. But koo Wee Rup or Lang Lamg would make a lot of sense.

Wonderful video! I have a copy of the 1955 version of the same map. It's somewhat sobering how quickly things were beginning to change in the post-war period: the Lette line has become the Robinvale line, the Whitfield line is just gone, and the Ballarat-Colac line is marked "unused" so all those fascinating triple-travel-time stations near Cressy are absent. We really need to see viable passenger rail return to regional Victoria.

As always, outstanding work. Thank you for your service, fella!

I think Castlemaine-Maryborough would make a good Ballarat-Bendigo service and would probably be a better use of the existing Maryborough service which isn't very well utilized but unfortunately thats less likely than others

I remember years ago going into the Victorian Government Tourist Bureau and asking the best way to get to Walhalla. He started to give directions by car, then when we said we didn't have a car and wanted to go by train, he looked at us as if we had just come down from Mars. It's a sad state of affairs, to think of how the railways had us covered once.

Great video - your detail is amazing! So much more for me to learn about Melbourne and Victoria, given that my ancestors arrived here in the mid 1800's as free settlers from the UK. They immediately went to Ballarat in the hope of striking it rich during the gold rush...

Back in 1971, as a Primary School student, I had a week long school excursion on the Train of Knowledge. This was a train with about 6 sleeper carriages that went through Western Victoria. At various locations we would alight to catch a bus to go to local attractions. This train ran from Melbourne to Warrnambool, Hamilton, Horsham, Stawell and Ballarat. There may have also been side trip by train to Portland, Swan Hill and Bendigo (it is over 50 years ago so some of the trip is a bit vague). This trip was something I have remembered ever since, so it is a pity that it is no longer possible due to the number of lines it used that are now closed (such as Warrnambool to Horsham via Hamilton).

this is so cool I wish it still looked like this

Wonderful stuff, as always, Martin. I treasure my little black book: Victorian Railways Diagram of Gradients & Curves, 203 pages of, well, gradients and curves, plus the height above sea level of every station no matter its size or importance. Unfortunately the map at the front, dated August 1927, is so small that only the main stations and junctions are named on it. Amazingly, Lette gets a mention on the tiny map, but no details of the gradients and curves. Like others I would love to get my hands on a copy of your grandmother's 1949 map. What a treasure.

I wish South Australia had a rail network this great. Wow.

Great video. Also new: Long Island (still open)and Barry Beach (closed). Black Rock was a truncation from Beaumaris. I fished out my 1941 map of the same style. It did show Mt Gambier, Pinnaroo and Albury, also the whole SAR Mt Gambier line, and all south-east NSW lines. Some maps show two lines which were authorised but never built: Edenhope (west) and beyond Orbost to Brodribb (east). Lette was aborted because the scheme to irrigate the area was abandoned. Soon after Mt Gambier was converted, the Overland was diverted that way after a freight train derailment on the mainline, with doubleheaded N-class steam locos between Hamilton or Heywood and Mt Gambier. I have no record of diversion via Pinaroo, but priority freight was diverted that way during gauge conversion of the main Adelaide line.

It was fun looking at the map and locating all the places I've lived in or visited over the years. Thanks for sharing your family heirloom.

I’m pretty sure I’ve seen a similar map at Castlemaine inside the VGR’s gift room and it is on the back wall

Thanks for another great video! I would personally like to see a regional loop running from Geelong to Wangarrata via Ballarat, Bendigo and Shepparton. Most of the tracks are already there.

Great video. I appreciate your insight and detail. My dad had a contract for the repainting of Grain Elevator Board silos across much of Victoria. He used to travel to many stations and spend a few days completing a paint job. I’d travel with him on school holidays. Places like Lubeck, Ynack were stops. We’d stay in country pubs while out and about. In another story, my childhood neighbour, in Wangaratta, worked for Vic Rail and was the driver of the last train between Wangaratta and Beechworth. His name was Keith Adamswaith.

This video was very interesting, especially when comparing it against my map from February 1986. Some of the differences/interesting things I noticed include the city loop (obviously)existing but the port Melbourne and st Kilda lines also still exist, Ballarat is still zoomed in but only has four stations, all stations such as Albury are included and the tracks going beyond that the line are labeled “Main Sydney Line” with all the Adelaide lines having something similar, most but not all branch lines are closed and most if not all the main lines are still open and there is a service from Sandringham to Southland via Cheltenham but I don’t know what kind of service it is exactly. Also the stations on my map only have the shortest distance from Melbourne noted unless otherwise specified(E.G. Deniliquin via Seymour) Anyway thanks for another great video!

You'll have to check out the Alexandra timber tramway if you haven't done so already.

there's all kinds of old maps like this online if you can find them, I think I found a bunch of them from the mid to late 19th century on a website some victorian rail fans were running a few years ago. a totally unique resource for the history assignment I was doing at the time! you could see towns appear and disappear as the fortunes of the area changed, that kind of thing. very interesting! (made this comment before watching the video, so if you mention this in it sorry for repeating stuff)

If you get off at Alamein station and find the bike path heading south, you'll see the steel beams from when it continued on to East Malvern on the Glen Waverley line.

This is remarkable. Well done ❤

Bring it back!

Thank you for a great look at the railways in the past..

Thanks for a great video. Well explained with good graphics. Mileages are my thing, and I noticed that the border on the Mt Gambier Line had the distance in Miles, Chains and Links, which is also shown on the 1927 Grades diagram which stops at the border.

The branch line to katamatite from Dookie was originally a broad guage tramway like Koondrook too, however that was taken over much earlier (1892!) Some of the more interesting railway deviations not covered include the ones around Waranga dam near Rushworth and next to lake hume where Tallangata town and station got completely moved. The Wodonga station on that map is also now a shopping centre, as the line was rerouted with a new station out of the city.

Not only were the branch lines speed limited because of their construction they were also limited in the rolling stock that could run on them. In the 1980's had to book wagons for the Maffra line and only obsolete twin axle wagons could run on the line, VLine needed advanced notification so they could gather the required number from across the network to send there. It is not the subject of your 1949 map however there was a completely new freight line built in the 1980's and then decommission in the 1990's to Webb Dock from the old Spencer Street rail yards.

Amazing video! Best public transport explanation video I have seen :D

Fantastic video! All those closed lines (whilst a shame) are great bones for a railtrail bike network!

Great video!

Just got back from the great Carlton game (go blues) and a taitset video to top it off! My life is complete!

really interesting vid. made me google when east oakleigh station became huntingdale- 1955

Martin, very nice video as well!😁

The Quarry at the Grampians supplied much of the stone work for parliament house and other notable Melbourne buildings. Mining stopped shortly after WWII Shipping via rail would have been smarter than shipping by road

Frequently lament the loss of the passenger service between Ballarat and Geelong. Two major cities with no direct train link seems strange, but then again, I don't recall the politics involved in closing down that service. I did get to travel on it once, way back when.

Ohhh., Trains and maps, by someone never before sugessted to me by the RU-vid algorithms. Gotta watch this! Utterly confused for 15 seconds before realising this is not about lines and destinations serviced from Victoria Station, London, England.. But its new stuff from a country whose railsways I know little to nothing about, so a net gain! Subscribed!

Great presentation.

I have one from march 1890 showing proposed lines. It is on 150 x 120 mm cards mounted on a canvas backing.

My grandfather worked at the Newport shops as well as out at Korumburra for Vic Rail. The extent that VR operations ran to is amazing... even running their own bakery and chook farm.

you should make more videos like the upfield line because it was really fun to watch

Is there anyway you could upload this scan so we could see it in closer detail? Please and Thank you

"Progress" Both the inner and outer loops should've been retained and then converted to underground later on. And to be fair, this is still theoretically possible.

VERY WELL DONE! My concept for returning passenger trains to Mildura involves a standard gauge VLOSITY running Mildura to Maryborough with a VLOSITY running to and from Melbourne. Also, a similar concept for a Adelaide service. SG train Adelaide Ararat and BG train to and from Melbourne.

Brilliant!

The Port Fairy & Portland lines I’m sure would be profitable if reopened for passenger service!

Marvelous finish.And man, the metro network is tiny. You could go to different parts of Victoria and feel like you entered another country.

Amazing video! I love it

That was very interesting, I remember trains on St. Kilda and Port Melbourne, Red rattlers from Moonee Ponds (change at Flinders) to Sandringham and, oh wow!, you beaut Blue trains (Harris) on the Frankston line. Speculating with my brother next will be a sliver streak. And lo, they brought in those aluminum ones. I also remember a crowing poster from Moonee Ponds announcing "Showers on a train!". Interstate I assume. I'm 63 and would love to hear more of the line to Kew. You can see where it branched off at Royal Park, and apparently a single track over that "Chandler Hwy" bridge. If you've done one pls post a link.

My uncle has a copy of this exact map on his farm. I've seen it before. I think Warburton is a non-starter but to Healsville would absolutely work in my humble opinion.

I work in werneth, right where the station (RMSP) on the former Newtown-Cressy line, the alighnment is still after all these years clearly visible. Also you can still see the rokewood station site with a vaguely recognisable plarform.

my grandpa has a map of the suburbs of Melbourne from 1940 with the suburban rail lines showing

The Mildura line was also the closest to being upgraded to a passenger line but it never happened because of budget cuts in the state government even though it had an overwhelming amount of public support behind it.

This is a amazing video

This was a fascinating video, really shows how the railways have changed over time and how they still are changing, and it's just in Victoria! What's it like in the other states? While I appreciate how difficult having several different track gauges used for your main lines must've been and still is in some cases, especially when travelling between states, I absolutely love the variety. It's one of my favourite things about Australian railways, along with the variety of British and American-influenced designs when it comes to your steam locomotives especially (and as a Briton, I'm perhaps unsurprisingly more biased towards the ones that look like our locos, particularly the Beyer Garratts. Though I will give an honourable mention to the VR NA Class, I love the Puffing Billy engines).

Hey Martin, It's rather annoying that the inner circle closed given the redundancy and easier access it would have given passengers with more direct routes from certain places from upfeild for example, real shame. Also, was the Alamein line ever connected to the Glen Waverley line? There evidently was track that ran past the end of Alamein station, reaching all the way to Gardiners Creek before seeming to just vanish. I can't find any info about it and it really bugs my dreams and thoughts. Thanks

My old man bought a lot of the old tracks on the cohuna line when it was demolished in the late 80's.

Fantastic video, Martin! Out of curiosity where did you grandparents immigrate from? I have just today received records from the National Archive of Australia showing my grandmother also docked at Station Pier, a few years later than yours in 1952 from Malta.

such a shame that mildura trains don't run

The new Melbourne map is gorgeous. Reminds me of the old Cityrail map which imo is one of the most aesthetics maps ever. if not most.

Very interesting video. Have you done any content on the outer circle line?

My idea for returning trains to Mildura may be a good suggestion: Run 2 trains a day: one day train, and one night train. The day trains would depart from both Southern Cross and Mildura at 10:30AM. It would make a pick up stop at Werribee (or set down if from Mildura). It would run to Geelong station, then the locomotive would shunt around the train. Some new standard gauge tracks could be built to Geelong station. Next there could be new standard gauge tracks from Gheringhap to Ballarat, the next stop on the line. Afterwards, it would run along another new set of standard gauge tracks to Maryborough, the next stop. After that, it could run to St Arnaud (Dunolly could be used for a more frequent service to Donald), followed by Donald, Birchip, Ouyen, Red Cliffs and Mildura. It could arrive at around 5:30PM, taking 7 hours. The night train could depart from both locations at 8:00PM, and could go much slower to get to both locations at a good time. It would make additional stops at North Shore (potentially), Bannockburn, Lethbridge, Meredith, Creswick, Clunes, possibly Talbot, and Dunolly. The train would arrive into Mildura at around 8:00AM the next day, but people will have an hour to get off the train, so that they have longer to wake up. If the Geelong-Ballarat-Bendigo rail link came into use, it would use the stations that the day train doesn’t use (except North Shore and Dunolly of course). It could be run by an N class locomotive on standard gauge, with facilities for the day train, as well as sleeper cabins for the night train. There could be a Red Cliffs to Merbein shuttle service run by a Sprinter. It’s a very long idea, but it could work out.

At 4:00 there is a map showing in red closed lines. It doesn’t show the Geelong/Fyansford line as closed. I believe this would be the line that serviced the Geelong Cement works in Fyansford. That line was closed in late 1990’s/ early 2000’s - the cement works themselves shut in 2001. It is currently a bike/walking trail for some of its route and otherwise abandoned for the rest.

Very good

well done

Mildura has a total population (including Red Cliffs, Irymple, Merbein, Buronga and Gol Gol, as they truly make up the Mildura urban area) of 50,000. The direct standard gauge link to Geelong from Maryborough is a no-brainer for both freight and passenger services. It is sorely needed given the demographics in terms of age, disability and low income in the area, let alone its remoteness from most of the state. Horsham makes sense, as Stawell and Murtoa are both of a decent size, as well as Horsham itself. Ultimately, topography killed the South Gippsland line, as trains could never run fast enough to compete with road transport over the distance for freight or passenger services.

Terrific video thanks. Did I see the Stony Crossing line listed as open? Trains beyond Murrabit had stopped in 1943 and the section to Murrabit closed in 1961.

Some of my family live up in Mildura and it's wild knowing that there was a train stopping at Red Cliffs and Irymple (which is where some of them lived!). From memory the area is really hard to navigate unless you have someone to drive you around because it takes forever to get anywhere. I haven't been much as an adult so for all i know it may be well served by buses, but damn. Beautiful place tho, but very hot.

that was awesome

Ummm yeah I think it was the day before yesterday I found myself having to explain platform working in Albury for work.

Great stuff. Still missing the gap in the east where even now I feel there should be a train line running past Doncaster etc. Can still see the kind of "island" on the road that was apparently for the tracks to go?

11:38 never though i would see that on YT nice view from up top. would love to have passenger rail here in Mildura the Bus sucks now seats are horrible i miss the old bench style seats and the roads are straight up BS once you pass Ouyen the next 100 ish kms are rough as hell.

I used to catch a train from flinders street to stkilda from 1983- 1986 because my mother lived in grey street . Also l have watched lots of your videos, there was one about the blue trains my last memory of riding on one was when i was going too and from springvale and clayton in 1986 as i was going to clayton tec then. I was still going there when they were building monash medical center , clayton tec no longer exists .

I lived in the house on the station when Jung was operational

I great enjoyed this overview of this map. I love railway maps, actually have a collection of railway maps of all state systems dating back to WWII to 1980s. May I ask what scanner you used to scan such a map? Assuming just a home one, or something abit more advanced? Thanks!

Nice one! Make sure to get that map back to your nana!! 😊

Yes Martin, there used to be an "All Lines Ticket" that allowed holders to ride ANY Victorian rail line, be it passenger or freight! Your Grandma wouldn't recognise Greensbegorrah station now..!

Can you post a link to this image in the description so that we can look at it more deeply?

As a Horsham resident, I would love regulartrain services to run between here and Ararat, the road coaches are too infrequent and at inconvenient times if you want to fo to Melbourne for the day