The North East railway line is a railway line in Victoria, Australia. The line runs from Southern Cross railway station on the western edge of the Melbourne central business district to Albury railway station in the border settlement of Albury-Wodonga, serving the cities of Wangaratta and Seymour, and smaller towns in northeastern Victoria.
The railway line is both standard gauge and broad gauge. It originally was built as broad gauge the entire length, but another track was built as standard gauge between and , with construction of the standard gauge track commencing in November 1959 and completed in January 1962, completing the Sydney-Melbourne standard gauge railway. Between 2008 and 2010, the broad gauge track between Seymour and Albury was finally converted to be the line's second standard gauge track. The original section between Southern Cross and remains broad gauge, with the standard gauge joining and running parallel to the broad gauge between Jacana and Seymour, where the broad gauge branches off on the Tocumwal line, and finally continuing as standard gauge all the way to Albury.
The line is owned by VicTrack, but the standard gauge sections are leased to and maintained by the Australian Rail Track Corporation.
History Broad gauge via Essendon
The Melbourne and Essendon Railway Company opened the first section of the Albury line, from North Melbourne to Essendon, in 1860. Following its takeover by the Victorian Government in 1867, the line was extended by 1872The Centenary of the Opening of the Railway to Seymour, Turton, Keith W. Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, April;May 1972 pp. 73–95;101–109 to School House Lane on the south side of the Goulburn River near Seymour, and later that year to Seymour and then to Longwood. Violet Town, Benalla, Wangaratta, Springhurst and Wodonga were reached in 1873, connecting with the New South Wales Government Railways at Albury at a break of gauge in 1883. The design engineer was Robert Watson.
The section between Flinders Street and Essendon was used by suburban services and in May 1919, that section was part of the first lines to be electrified in Melbourne, apart from a test installation on the Flemington Racecourse line. In 1921, the line was electrified to Broadmeadows, where it remained till the extension of electrification in 2007.
Until 2008, the Albury V/line service continued to run via Essendon along the broad gauge tracks, together with the Seymour and Shepparton V/line services.
1962 Standard gauge track Construction Preliminary work for construction of the standard gauge track began in November 1957 with the establishment of camps for the building gangs, with the first section being laid in November 1959. A special train had operated for journalists and railway officials along the broad gauge on 1 May 1961, to show the progress on the standard gauge alignment then under construction.
The first ballast train was operated by recently purchased W class engine W266, previously New South Wales' 7101, and five gauge-converted NN ballast hoppers. By this stage of track had been constructed from Wodonga heading south, and this was considered a "works siding" for operational purposes with two ballast trains per day, loaded from a temporary facility at the Melbourne end of Wodonga's new standard gauge crossing loop, followed by a Matisa tamping machine to lift the track and push the ballast sideways under the sleepers. By 7 October 1961 a second "works siding" was established from Wangaratta to Seymour, and the ballast train first arrived at the latter a week later, then proceeding further south on the 1942-built second bridge over the Goulburn River; this required reverting the broad gauge line into Seymour back to a single track connection.
After Seymour the ballast train used material quarried from a siding at Broadford, with road deliveries from the quarry to the track. On 26 November 1960 one of the two tracks of the Albion–Jacana railway line was converted from broad to standard gauge, and resignalling of the other track for bidirectional movements, and on 29 November 1961 the track reached West Footscray Junction, only a short distance from Melbourne. By this stage engine W266 and its ballast wagons had moved on to working the Seymour-Melbourne section of line, supplemented by a few QN low-sided ballast wagons, with newly delivered mainline locomotive S316 being used to consolidate the track from Wodonga.
Track sections that were to be gauge-converted, such as at Seymour and between Albion and Jacana, were managed by an almost entirely automated system. One rail was left in place, but the dogspikes for the other were lifted, followed by a specially fitted tractor that lifted the rail over to the centreline of the alignment. The sleeper plates were then moved over and refixed manually, and a second tractor lifted the rail into its new position. Finally, a mechanical spike driver installed the dogspikes in their final positions.
On 3 December 1961 a special inspection train for journalists ran on the parallel broad gauge, worked by engines S315 and S314 with a consist of AC-BS-Wimmera-Avoca-BZ-BZ-AZ-Norman (8 cars, ), with live commentary by the Victorian Railways' Chief Civil Engineer, Mr. L. Reynolds.
The first train to run from Wodonga into Melbourne was worked by engines S316 and S317 on 6 December 1961, hauling the Victorian Railways' ballast wagons (four QN's, four NN's), a pair of New South Wales Railways MBC bogie box vans, and the NSW Track Inspection Car No.AK417, which was fitted with a Hallade track recorder. The train ran to the end of the standard gauge track at West Footscray Junction, then propelled back to Sunshine Loop to reverse the order of the carriages and return northbound.
Spencer Street station in Melbourne was extensively rebuilt and reorganised with two dual-gauge tracks and three longer interstate platforms, opening on 18 December 1961, to accommodate the new standard gauge service as well as the anticipated increased patronage on The Overland to Adelaide.
On 2 January 1962 five tandem S Class locomotives departed Melbourne for Albury, in order to be available to bring the first few trains into Melbourne that evening and the following day. The first through interstate goods train left Alexandra Interstate Goods Terminal at 3:25 pm on 2 January 1962, arriving at North Dynon in Melbourne at 11 am the following morning worked by engines S315 (leading) and S314, which had taken over at Albury, departing at 3:47 am. The load was 22 wagons for tons, consisting of three FME flat wagons, one BD open wagons, seventeen LLV louvre vans and a TAM sleeping carriage conveying journalists to record the arrival. The train actually arrived at West Footscray around 9:30 am, but was held outside the terminus to the scheduled arrival time. Shortly thereafter, S316 arrived with a second train, 19 bogie vehicles and a PHG guard's van for .
At 11:45 am, engines S314 and S315 took the first northbound goods train towards Sydney, hauling 34 wagons and a PHG guard's van for a total 35/. Other than the brake van, this train was composed entirely of Victorian rolling stock, with fifteen VP louvre vans, one FVF flexi-van flatcar, four BLF boxvans, three ELF open wagons and ten QCF container flatcars. This train was split at Albury into two portions due to gradients between there and Sydney. The third arrival into North Dynon at 12:20 pm was worked by S317 with about nineteen TLV vans and a PHG guard's van for , on the Tinplate Express from Unanderra, New South Wales, and the fourth was S313 at 3:55 pm with of open wagons and van. At 10 pm S316 and S317 took the second northbound train, with 27/ of the Tinplate wagons, four ELFs, two PHG vans, the three FME flats, and the TAM sleeping car.
On Sunday 1 April, eight Victorian Railways passenger cars were sighted parked in South Dynon, having been converted to standard gauge. These cars were 1 and 2VFS, 1 and 2VHN, 1VFX, 5 and 6 VFK and 1VRS; with a ninth car of the VBK class awaiting conversion. Changes included fitting of Bradford Kendall "Commonwealth" roller bearing bogies with asbestos brake pads, modified end gangways for compatibility with New South Wales' rolling stock, and replacement of the axle-driven generator systems with 415 volt a.c. head end power electricals. The re-gauging was achieved by moving the wheels (and brake equipment) closer together on the axles, with no change to the bogie frames. Additionally, the two VHN guard's vans had their tail and side lights modified to match the arrangements of the Southern Aurora coaches. These carriages were going to be used on the newly standardised Spirit of Progress service, extended to Sydney.
The final section of track into Melbourne city opened on 5 April 1962, and the first through passenger service left Sydney on the evening of Thursday 12 April 1962. Both sets of Southern Aurora carriages were used to convey 400 passengers through to Melbourne, one set returning the next morning. Passenger services officially began on Monday 16 April 1962.
First days In the original timetable, no trains were scheduled to pass in opposite directions at the crossing loop facilities of Somerton, Wallan, Glenrowan or Violet Town. These would have allowed for recovery from late running, as well as slots for the passenger trains that would shortly be introduced. Train numbers were copied from the New South Wales system, with a suffix "1" for northbound or "2" for southbound trains. With the line opened a new fee of per ton to or from Dynon was added, with to the Victorian Railways and to the New South Wales Railways. Transhipment fees were paid only if required at Albury, Wodonga or Dynon, rather than every single item having to be transhipped at Albury.
The nine intermediate crossing loops along the line were each clear of fouling points,, with a generally standardised track layout which would later allow one control panel to work any of the locations remotely, first by selecting the site to be worked and then the relevant signal, point or other function. However, for the first few years the line was worked with manual controls for the turnouts, with mechanical semaphore signals on the arrival side of each Loop, and Miniature Electric Staff with Automatic Exchangers for the sections between West Footscray, Somerton, Donnybrook, Broadford and Seymour, then Train Staff and Ticket for sections between Seymour, Longwood, Benalla, Alumatta, Chiltern and Wodonga, then finally Large Electric Staff for Wodonga to Albury. The Centralised Traffic Control (C.T.C.) system was activated from Seymour to Wodonga at 10 am on Tuesday 5 February 1963, with the section from Seymour to West Footscray following within the fortnight.
The standard gauge mainline was intersected by broad gauge sidings at Tottenham, Sunshine, Albistore, Broadstore, Somerton, Tallarook (yard and Mansfield branch line), Seymour (for the locomotive depot), Mangalore, Benalla, Alumatta (for Wangaratta Cattle Siding), Bowser (for the Everton line), and Wodonga (for the Cudgewa line). Each of these crossings was controlled by an interlocked connection from the nearest signal box, though on opening of the new line some sidings were temporarily locked out of use.
The line speed was lifted from to on 1 July 1963; though in the months leading up to that observations were made that the original timetables had apparently been written with average (not maximum) speeds as high as between Chiltern and Alumatta loops (20 minutes for ), but 25 minutes had been allowed for Melbourne-bound trains between West Footscray and Spencer Street (about ) to counter any delays encountered on the route from Sydney.
Operations Passenger services