I "copped" being born at a given time, and I'm able to say that I can remember riding behind a struggling 2'6" Beyer Garrett "G42" from Colac to Beach Forest as a 3 year old. I remember hurting my tiny hand trying to grab passing bracken from the foot plate of the guard's van behind immense clouds leaking steam. I also rode the first official reopening to Gembrook from Belgrave. Thank you for this very comprehensive history and look after that amazing heirloom of a map.
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.
@@johnd8892 You can post links in comments on RU-vid because there are so many spam bots trying to advertise dodgy websites. But thanks for letting me know it's on here!
"I had a crappy temp job" [...] "That job was amazing" [...] "Probably my favourite job as a young map nerd." 😂Sounds like you came around to it in the end!
Also i think there's some complete no brainers in Victoria that should have a frequent rail service immediately - mostly Geelong to Maryborough via Ballarat, with the goal to rebuild a line to Bendigo. The network desparately needs to be decentralized from Melbourne. Other places that could support local trains could be Merbein to Red Cliffs on the Mildura line - more population there than on many European local train routes that get hourly service.
@@vojtasTS29would certainly help get cars off the road between Red Cliffs and Irymple. The highway, due to a lack of viable alternatives, is always extremely busy in the mornings and afternoons. You’re lucky to go above 70 (limit is 80, formerly 100) due to slow drivers and the like. Merbein isn’t as bad as there are two good routes you can take. And both towns receive regular buses, that should just receive extended running hours and a frequency boost instead of calling it quits at 7pm each day.
Healesville was a direct result of Colin McKenzie's ownership of the local bus company and being a member of the Liberal Party, which commissioned the Looney (Lonie) Report. It could've been kept open at the time for the price of the average suburban house at the time (around $60k in 1980). Sadly, Black Saturday put pay to any chance of re-opening, as the cost of replacing the bridges across the Yarra River floodplain is astronomical.
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
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.
Thankyou, very interesting! I've spent a fair bit of time camping in the area but never managed to nail down where Millewa actually referred to. Quite unconventional for the VR to name a line like that, I guess they didn't have many other options! There's also a town called Milawa over near Wangaratta.
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!
I did similar Bruce. Broadmeadows line went through to Sandringham in those days. When visiting my auntie in Cheltenham. She picked us up from Sandy so we didn't have to change to the Frankston line at Flinders Street. I'm 63. Trust a young lad on his own???!!! Probably not happen these days.
“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.
Interesting, thankyou! I've spent a bit of time up that way but always assumed it was a long lost town. I've been on the Red Cliffs railway, it's very cool! I considered including it in the tourist railways part of this map, but figured if I started including light/industrial railways it would start opening a can of worms that is a bit much to cover in this video.
“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
Coming from Sydney, Melbourne's huge network of awkwardly intersecting freeways is a maze to navigate, especially if you aren't 100% sure what you are doing. With a couple of exceptions like the Harbour Bridge and the Parramatta exit on the M4, most freeway entries and exits in Sydney are more or less the same, while Melbourne has decided that every off ramp has to be unique (and then they wonder why dumb drivers swerve like maniacs to avoid missing exits).
@@nathandunnn Meanwhile Perth is pretty much 1. Off ramp on your left. 2. Traffic lights, not even grade separated 3. That stupid freeway area near mounts bay, between Kwinana, Mitchell and Graham Farmer Freeway southbound, where most of the traffic on the left wants to be in the right lane, and most of the traffic on the right lane wants to be on the left.
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!
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.
I'm a Deni local and I reckon it would be awesome, the trains nowadays are pretty well exclusively for SunRice (the biggest employer in Deni apart from agriculture and aged care) and I think having us as an interchange point between broad gauge and standard would be great too. Deniliquin was always slated as the "Gateway to the Riverina" I believe so why not make that a reality. There's so much that could be done to make that reality too, and it would work. Our pop is only a bit smaller than Echuca (not including Moama) and there's far more resources and infrastructure there. But why do that when you can build petrol stations instead, on a road that has 2 major ones not 1km away... 😬
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.
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.
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.
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
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...
That was certainly a very informative and interesting look at the once was railways. It's a huge shame so much of it has gone. Considering the cost of maintaining roads and the lack of funding in other transport areas, a lot of the railways that exists, wouldn't take much to get up to passenger services. Imagine the tourist numbers, if catching a train to somewhere in Victoria, being the same price as existing VLine services.
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.
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.
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
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.
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!
Haha thankyou. 🙂 It's often been a problem that the phrase 'Victorian Railways' can refer to the government organisation, to railways in this state generally, or to railways from the Victorian era. Railways out of London Victoria is another layer we can add!
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.
still mourning the loss of the carpolac line, it's a part of local history i never got to see but the remains are so evident once you know what you're looking for! i would have been able to catch a train from melbourne to carpolac and not have to drive it instead! :(
"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.
Credit where credit is due, parts of the network are definitely faster than they used to be. The places that have a train have a decent (if unreliable) service, realistically it's still a heap faster than a bus. Some regional centres are served better than the equivalents in any other state, while a lot of the closed branchlines would have zero chance competing with road transport anyway nowadays and are a product of very different times.
I’ve had this harebrained idea for a little while for a much larger inner loop, running all the way from Williamstown to Oakleigh via a tunnel from Footscray to the Flemington line, before going underground between Newmarket and either Flemington Bridge or Royal Park. It could then run along the old inner circle in ideally a skyrail arrangement, before reconnecting at rushall to a four-platform Clifton Hill (this would be much easier after Metro Tunnel 2 if it ever gets going). It could then swing eastwards in the same ROW as the Doncaster line before rejoining the old outer loop alignment. Just build some interchange stations at East Camberwell and East Malvern and a turn back platform between Hughesdale and Clayton and you’re done. In one fell swoop it frees up capacity to Werribee, provides line transfers around the inner city, and likely for a lot cheaper than the SRL (though that should still be built obviously)
@@patrickc211 I’ve had the exact same idea too!!! I think it would be best combined with some new “express” lines to the city on some of the already available alignments. Then there are alternate faster routes for express trains, and options for disruptions. Then the outer circle route can mostly be for people doing either short travel between suburbs, or going further out on the network and wanting to skip the city and possibly interchange with a tram or train. It’d certainly make a lot more sense than the SRL!!
Absolutely no way the Inner and Outer Circles would ever have justified being tunnelled. The Inner Circle itself had no purpose at all once the Flinders Street viaduct opened. Today if it were to open in some form it would be best opened as a tram route connecting to the wider tram network.
@@Sagealeena Yep, some lines like Hurstbridge, Belgrave, Lilydale need quad-track sections for express trains, just a shame that the existing routes probably wouldn't allow for that without more expensive city land being bought up
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.
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.
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)
You may be referring to maps by Andrew Waugh. His maps are his own production, but drawn very similarly to the maps the Victorian Railways issued. He did them for every ten years from 1860 to 2000 to show how the network changed.
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).
Would have been a great experience as a kid! Most (possibly all) vehicles used on the Train of Knowledge still exist in preservation, and while that exact route can't be replicated today it's certainly possible to do some pretty similar things. In recent years Melbourne Grammar has run the 'Bluestone Express' as a school band tour of regional Victoria, using a chartered 707 Operations train.
7:28 you'll notice another weird thing about interstate connections and stations - Wolseley, west of Serviceton, is shown on the map, despite being operated by the SAR, but is not labelled; it's just a dot just beyond the border
I wish that the trains still ran to Blowhard. Partially because of the funny name, but mostly because the next station, Learmonth, had the line and station itself pretty much running lakeside and it'd have made for great picnic trains.
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.
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.
Not just two major cities, but the two largest regional cities in the state. The service stopped at a time when railway patronage was declining and railways were not considered to be desirable.
As someone who likes to ride the rail trails and bikepack my way around the state, the lack of rail really prevents some really interesting options. Vline buses do not allow bikes (although replacement buses have nice drivers). So while I have ridden to and near quite a few of these old lines, for example Mildura, they aren't going to bring in weekend tourist traffic. And bikepackers are known to be hungry, thirsty and willing to spend at local establishments.
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.
It still has...moreover the public support is generational with young people who were not born 32 years ago when the Vinelander ceased operating who are now strong passenger rail advocates for Mildura and who utilise the V/Line bus service to/from Mildura.
@@mikevale3620 Yeah passenger services to Mildura could very possibly also be extremely busy and popular if they had trains running at a frequency of every 2-3 hours but may be able to have hourly services during peak times.
@@johnmurphy9636 They even now want to cancel the airport rail link even though it wouldn’t cost too much if they made it elevated while it could be extremely busy during peak travel times! :)
@@Techno-Universal Well that's the problem. The problem, Gov't wants it above ground, airport wants it under. This has been going on for over 20 years. I still happen to have a Project Newsletter from Jan 2021. They project target start of construction at 2023.
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!
The route from Sandringham to Southland was a VR bus route that started as a replacement for the VR tram route from Sandringham to Black Rock, and is now part of route 922, I think. If your map has that, it should also have another from East Camberwell to Deepdene, and perhaps one from Broadmeadows to Coolaroo.
@@Johntrampoline The one from East Camberwell was a replacement for the train to Deepdene, which was withdrawn in 1943. The one from Broadmeadows was a much later route put on to placate calls to extend the suburban service past Broadmeadows, but I don't recall just when. It seems from your map that it was after 1986.
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.
Thankyou, glad you enjoyed it! I also have the '27 curves and grades book, although mine is an ARE reprint, not a VR original (but still nearly 50 years old!). I just had a look at the map, it's interesting how Lette is also shown in a bigger font than other places nearby! I probably will upload a copy of the '49 map, it still needs a bit of work cleaning up some details from when I stitched it back together after scanning however.
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.
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.
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.
I recommend that you find a good framing business and get the map framed for your study, I have a 1938 Victorian Railways map and it looks great in the home office.
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).
Thankyou, glad you enjoyed it! I'm in a similar boat, while the chaos of different gauges has definitely been a huge problem operationally, it sure makes for some interesting history. Also agreed on the NA class - very attractive little locos. Victoria is probably the most chaotic today when it comes to gauges. SA used to be worse, with a mix of all three mainline gauges, but they've closed so many lines they're now down to the SG interstate lines, the isolated BG suburban network, and the small isolated NG line on the Eyre Peninsular. WA and QLD are pretty simple, with their internal networks being NG and the interstate connections SG. NSW got it easy by being SG already (it was also their fault that we ended up in this situation, so not great that they ended up with the easiest deal). Then Tasmania is all NG but obviously doesn't have the issue of connecting to other states.
Yep pretty much, also very small and dispersed population compared to other states. They basically lost all their regional passenger trains by the 90s.
@@Taitset Huh, I'd have expected that if any state had that population factor it would've been West Australia or especially the Northern Territory. But then I suppose the vast majority of the SA populace is in the Adelaide area?
@@dominicbarden4436 Yep, and it was pretty similar in WA, they only retained a handful of passenger services outside Perth. The NT only had one railway, it closed in 1976 and the new one wasn't built until 2004.
Using the N sets to test new country routes on the SG network would've been a great idea, save on paying for expensive new stock until the demand is proven.
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.
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.
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.
They were stainless steel, not aluminium. The branch from Royal Park was the Inner Circle and went to Rushall and Merri. The line over the Chandler Highway bridge was the Outer Circle, and had an East Kew station, but the Kew line branched off from Hawthorn.
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.
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 .
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.
"Black Rock was a truncation from Beaumaris." Sort of, but as I'm sure you would know, Beaumaris was a 'temporary' extension from Black Rock, in that it was guaranteed against losses by the local council for five years. When that five years was up and the guarantee ran out, that section closed.
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.
My family have lived in East Malvern, near the station, for 4 generations (same street, even!) because my great-grandpa was a train driver & my great-grandma wanted to live in the country. 😁 Back then drivers couldn’t simply sign in at the end of whichever line they lived near, they had to travel to North Melbourne, sign in and THEN start work. This meant that if my great-grandpa was working on Sunday, he had to ride his bike all the way from East Malvern to North Melbourne (because the trains didn’t start early enough in the morning to catch a train in), sign in, do his shift, then ride from Nth Melb back to E Malv again! Phew! His brother in law, my great-great aunt’s husband, also worked in the railways as a mechanic. Because both men were in the railways and railway workers were considered extremely well paid (like, a pound or 3 a month, or something) it was illegal for my great-grandma & her sister to have jobs. (It was the same for all railway wives; if they got jobs it was considered they were stealing jobs from men) This didn’t stop them, though. 🤣 They ran a delicatessen on Greville St in Prahran (of all places!) that had a pig over the front door with BACON painted on it. (The same shop eventually became a vegetarian shop called “Grains and Greens”) 🤣🤣 My great-gran was apparently an incredible business woman who owned 4 other business that she leased out to other people, all while being completely illegal. 🤣 Having said that, my great-grandparents were also SP bookies & my ggran & her sister were apparently also inveterate shop lifters. (We’re all MUCH more trustworthy and respectable these days, honest, guv!) 😂😂 The railways had a huge effect on my family when I think about it. My grandma married a local East Malvern boy on 24 November 1943. (Her 21st birthday & his 26th) He also worked for the railways & thus was in a protected industry & couldn’t be sent to WWII. They married & moved out to Poowong because his work was there. My gran became pregnant with my mum almost immediately & when she was heavily pregnant went back to stay with my ggrandparents because there was a hospital nearby. Just before my mum was born, my grandma’s husband borrowed a friend’s motorbike & rode all the way to E Malvern to visit my grandma. It was the last time they ever saw him because he had a fatal accident on the trip back. So in the space of a week my poor gran buried her husband & gave birth to my mum. (During which her appendix exploded & she spent the next year in hospital, but that’s another story) My family are still there near E Malvern station, my sister ALSO married a local boy & now lives in my grandparents’ house. Our grandma died in May 2020, aged exactly 97 and-a-half, & my step-grandpa followed her that October aged 94. (He ALSO grew up in E Malvern- they’d known each other their entire lives) ❤️❤️
That's an amazing story, I hadn't heard that about railway wives not being allowed to work! My grandma who owned this map was very close in age to your grandma, she passed away in august 2020, aged 96.
@@Taitset oh, bless. ❤️🩹 It’s hard to believe they’re gone, even though they were so very old, because they were around for _ever_ , so imagining them not being there was practically impossible. Where did your grandma come from? My gggrandparents came from Cornwall. My mum has early memories of my gggran who died in 1957 aged nearly 103. ❤️
@AussieKim42 That's an amazing age to reach at that time! My grandma was from the english midlands, and my grandpa was a lowlander Scott. They arrived in Australia on the same day - a complete coincidence as they didn't meet until later! Unfortunately he died in 1970 so I never met him.
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.
My grandma came from England (Sussex I think) and my grandpa was a lowlander Scot. They arrived on different ships on the same day - a complete coincidence as they didn't meet until a few years later!
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..!
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?
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.
If the "steel beams" are the stanchions carrying electric cables, then no, they were added after the line closed. Also, the line never went to East Malvern, as that station was also added after the Outer Circle line closed.
@@PJRayment Have a look at the Wikipedia page for the Outer Circle Rail Line. There is a map there with red lines representing former lines. One runs past Alamein station.
@@CRFLAus "Someone told me the line used to run through there." The line did run through there, down to about where Holmesglen station is now (with Oakleigh being the junction station, as Holmesglen wasn't there then). But East Malvern station didn't exist at the time either (it opened in 1929). The line from Burnley went to Darling, then connected with that line to Oakleigh. "Can you tell me why they'd erect stanchions for no reason?" They didn't erect them for no reason. They erected them (in the 1950s, I believe) well after the line closed (which was in 1895), to carry power from the East Malvern substation to the Alamein line.
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
It kept going, there was a station called Waverley for Waverley road very close to current east malvern and then ran to oakleigh on the Pakenham/Cranbourne line. You can see the old alignment on the outer circle rail trail from waverley road to hughesdale station.
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
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!
That's very cool! I scanned it with my epson v800. Had to do it in 6 sections then stitch it back together, which was challenging as I couldn't fully close the scanner lid or completely flatten the map without damaging it. So there are a few bits that don't quite line up properly if you know where to look. :)
There is a certain irony that the tramway at Sandy was the same guage as the larger Melbourne tramway system but was physically isolated from it, whereas the St Kilda - Brighton line was a different gauge but connected with the main tram system at four locations (Fitzroy St, Carlisle St, Acland St, Glenhuntly Rd). It is also ironic that the train line to St Kilda was converted to a tram almost 30 years after the connecting tram to Brighton was closed. Government planning at its finest. Also, you mention that 'road coaches' provide services on some closed rail routes. This is incorrect. There is no such thing as a 'road coach'. The term 'road coach' is deceptive spin so that passengers don't realise their conveyance is merely a bus.
Yes indeed, I wonder if the st kilda tramway had been standard gauge it might have at least partly survived and been integrated with the network. Re bus/coach - it's a pretty well recognised distinction internationally, and I guarantee if I'd called it a bus there would be a lot more comments telling me to call it a coach. 🙃
