Railroad in Victoria
The Victoria railroad developed as the state rail system of the British colony and the later Australian state of Victoria .
Gauge
Since the colonies were legally independent of each other before the amalgamation of the Australian federal state in 1901, the decision on the gauge in which the respective railroad was to be built was a matter for the individual colony. On February 19, 1850, a law was passed authorizing the construction of a railway from Melbourne to Port Adelaide , the port of Melbourne, in standard gauge . On July 27, 1852, New South Wales passed a law to build its railroad network in a broad gauge of 1,600 millimeters (5 feet 3 inches).
The original planning for the railway line was given up in favor of this decision, although Victoria had been separated from New South Wales as a colony in 1851. When New South Wales revised its decision again shortly afterwards and returned to standard gauge, Victoria was no longer able to support this decision, as railway systems had already been built in broad gauge and corresponding vehicles had been ordered. The result of this legislative chaos is the still problematic break in the gauges of the railway networks in Victoria and New South Wales.
network
The structure of Victoria's railway network is clearly star-shaped towards the capital Melbourne and its port. The first line was also built from Melbourne Flinders Street Station to the city's port, was four kilometers long and was the first in Australia to open on September 12, 1854. Some routes followed that are now used for suburban traffic.
The first long-distance routes of the Victoria colony ran from Melbourne to Echuca , Geelong and Ballarat . The two cross-border connections were important:
- In 1883 the border and connection to the rail network in New South Wales was reached in Albury . However, due to the different track widths, it was initially not possible for the trains to pass through. Passengers had to change trains, goods had to be reloaded. Since 1962 it has been possible to use a three-rail track continuously on standard gauge between Melbourne and the New South Wales network. The line has been completely rebuilt to standard gauge in recent years.
- In 1887 the gap to the railroad in South Australia was closed. Since January 19, 1887, the Intercolonial Express , the first direct connection between Melbourne and Adelaide , South Australia, ran . This was possible because both railway companies involved used the same gauge. It took him 18 hours to cover the 900-kilometer route at the time. The train was later officially called the Adelaide Express , although it was referred to as The Melbourne Express in South Australia . Today it operates as The Overland and as a day train.
The main lines are now usually double-tracked. The two cross-border connections to South Australia and New South Wales were converted to standard-gauge operation and, in addition, standard-gauge connecting railways and connections were created for freight traffic . Due to the flat topography of the country, the network is poor in engineering structures .
In the suburban train network of the Melbourne metropolitan area , a first line was switched to electrical operation on April 15, 1923 . This was Australia's first electrified line. Test drives had taken place since 1919. In July 1954, the Melbourne – Warragul line, the first long-distance line in Australia, went into electrical operation.
The state railway had reached its greatest extent in 1942 with 7668 route kilometers. From the 1960s, the importance of the railroad as a means of transport also declined in Victoria. This led to numerous branch lines being abandoned. However, the railway has a strong position in transcontinental freight traffic, especially in container trains and in local traffic in the Melbourne metropolitan area.
Long-distance passenger transport only plays a subordinate role, but in 2007 it received a new, modern station in Melbourne with Melbourne Southern Cross (formerly Spencer Street ).
Narrow-gauge railways
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At the end of the 19th and beginning of the 20th century, a number of narrow-gauge railways of different systems were built in relation to which broad-gauge railroad operation was not profitable. These railways, which brought traffic to the main lines, are almost all closed again today. As a railway museum and tourist attraction are Puffing Billy Railway and Walhalla Goldfields Railway received.
organization
In 1883 Victoria nationalized the railway companies, which had been largely organized under private law, and incorporated them into Victorian Railways . Overall, the densest rail network in Australia was built in Victoria.
After it had made a profit for the last time in 1965 and has since become increasingly economically deficient, it was initially organized under private law in the 1980s and the transport companies were then spun off in the 1990s.
vehicles
Right from the start, both self-made steam locomotives and imported machines from Robert Stephenson & Co. from England were used.
In 1883 the “Rowan Steam Car” designed by “WR Rowan of Copenhagen” was put into operation on the Victorian Railways . "WR Rowan" is possibly a son of Frederick James Rowan , who worked as an engineer on the first Jutland-Funen Railway from 1859 to 1872, with his full name William Robert Rowan.
After the Second World War , the steam locomotives were increasingly replaced by diesel locomotives and diesel multiple units and air-conditioned trains were used in passenger transport. The first diesel-electric locomotive went into service on July 14, 1952 .
history
On April 20, 1908, the most momentous railway accident occurred in Victoria. In Sunshine, a suburb of Melbourne, one train coming from Bendigo hit another train coming from Ballarat. Because of the Easter holidays, the trains were both occupied by over 1,000 passengers. 44 people died and 400 were injured when five cars in the front train were destroyed in the impact.
In 1954, Elizabeth II traveled to the state of Victoria on her first visit to Australia in a court train made available to her by Victorian Railways.
Todays situation
Traditionally, the transportation of agricultural products has been an important freight volume. The transport of live cattle was given up in 1986, the same year that the Spirit of Progress and Southern Aurora parade trains were also discontinued. The railway infrastructure still belongs to the state of Victoria. A number of railway companies run on it . These include Metro Trains Melbourne , which operate Melbourne's S-Bahn transport with electric multiple units, V / Line , which offers domestic regional and long-distance transport with diesel-powered trains, and a number of freight train companies such as Pacific National , El Zorro and QR National . Freight traffic by rail still plays a certain role in bulk goods and container traffic, but since the Second World War has had to give up a considerable amount of traffic to the road.
The maximum permissible speed today is usually 130 km / h, on a few sections of the route 160 km / h, and the maximum axle load is 20 tonnes. The permissible length of freight trains is 1200 meters, on the main lines to the neighboring countries 1500 meters.
literature
- Jim Powe: Trains and Railways of Australia . 2nd edition, Sydney 2009. ISBN 978-1-74110-902-3
Web links
- V / Linecars - V / Line passenger cars
- Mark Bau's Victorian Railways - History of Vehicles and the Signaling System
- Peter J. Vincent - History of Passenger Cars and Freight Cars
- Victorian Railways Resources - Maps and history of individual stations
- Victorian Railway Stations - Photographs of train stations
- Vicsig - infrastructure, operations, locomotives
Individual evidence
- ^ Victorian Railways
- ^ Victorian Railways Rolling Stock
- ↑ The London Gazette, October 1884 ( page no longer available , search in web archives ) Info: The link was automatically marked as defective. Please check the link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (PDF; 178 KiB)
