| Railways In Victoria |
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Information AboutRailways In Victoria |
| CATEGORIES ABOUT RAIL TRANSPORT IN VICTORIA | |
| transport in victoria | |
| rail transport in australia | |
| victorian rail transport | |
| history of victoria | |
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Rail transport in Victoria, Australia , is run by a combination of government run Railway lines and private concerns. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companies failed or defaulted, Victorian Railways was established to take over their operations. Victorian lines use 5' 3" gauge, with the exception of a few experimental Narrow Gauge lines, as well as some 4' 8½" freight & interstate lines. Victorian Railways grew to service all parts of the state, and became something of a Political Football with politicians demanding new lines to be built in places where traffic levels never justified it. By the 1960s , interstate traffic was suffering from the break of gauge at the New South Wales state border, and a parallel 4' 8½" line was built from the state capital, partly with Commonweath (national) funding. A bogies exchange depot was introduced to allow wagons to operate across the broad and standard gauge lines. The oldest single-gauge inter-capital line from Melbourne to Adelaide (dating from 1887 ) was finally converted from 5' 3" to 4' 8½" in 1995 . Since the 1970s , Victorian Railways has contracted, and many low use lines have been closed. For the latter days of the VR, it was known as VicRail, after a name change in 1974 . Victorian Railways experimented with four short Narrow Gauge lines of 2' 6". VicRail was split up in 1983 with V/Line taking over much of the regional network. Connex Melbourne operates the suburban railway network in Melbourne . EXTERNAL LINKS
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