recently new M's future Suburban railing has increased and is becoming more and more likely that this line is to be built this line will serve Melbourne's outer suburbs promoting development away from the city center and decentralizing Melbourne from the CBD this project is expected to greatly change the way people travel in Melbourne and continue to promote a more public transport focused travel within the city however this project is not the first time a circle line has been attempted for that we would have to go back over 100 years to the early days of Railways in Melbourne our story starts over 140 years ago in the early 1870s Victoria's Railway network was split in two with the government operated Victorian Railways operating Regional lines to Williamstown jalong Ballarat auka and Wonga while private Enterprise Melbourne and hopson's Bay United Railway operated the suburan network to Hawthorne Brighton and kilder in Port Melbourne all Melbourne Hudson Bay United Railway lines ran into the City and operated from flender Street Station was the Victorian Railways lines operated to Spencer Street Station on the other side of the CBD on the 2nd October 1873 a new Railway Construction Bill was introduced to the legislative assembly of the Victorian Parliament this bill was for eight new train lines these were the ovens River beachworth Railway Hamilton Railway Inglewood Railway avoka Railway kak Railway Portland Railway and most important to our story gibsland Railway in the initial proposal the line was intended to Branch off the existing line in ster Weck move East through the undeveloped outer region of the city before passing through Oakley then proceeding through GBS land and terminating its sale the problem was that elwick was on the Brighton Beach line which was owned by Melvin and Hudson Bay United Railway negotiations with the company had been initiated earlier in the year however had broken down by the time of the bill being introduced due to this it was decided the line would temporarily terminated at Oakley and a connection to the city would be built later the bill was passed successfully and became Railway construction Act number 475 a proposal of nine possible Roots was presented by Victorian railway's engineerin Chief Thomas higin Botham five of these required the purchase of melbour Hobson Bay United Railway company and the remaining four would bypass the company's lines one of these was described as follows the Outer Circle Line from North Melbourne via North carton North Fitzroy North coat Q upper hawthor borara Garder corfield and onto Oakley a distance of 15.2 Mi higen buffin decided that this Outer Circle Line was the best option as the cost of purchasing repairing and extending the existing melbour hollon Bay United Rail lines would total out to over5 million whilst constructing the Outer Circle Line would only cost around £200,000 theoretically saving over 1.3 million this did not stop the government from trying to purchase the M host Bay United Railway company on multiple occasions in 1872 an offer was made for 695,000 ,110 which was turned down another attempt occurred in 1873 with the price overd doubled to 1, 32082 however the deal still fell through in October 1873 a group called The Outer Circle Railway League was formed to persuade the public to vote for politicians who supported the Outer Circle plan the group mainly consisted of members from the northern suburbs interested in finally having a rail line pass through their area to counter this the Southern Railway League was formed wanting a line to run through the existing M hos Bay United Rail lines into Melbourne this group was mainly supported by members in the South who hoped that if the government acquired melbour hos Bay United Railway they would upgrade the Aging infrastructure operated by the company both sides argued fiercely through 1874 and 1875 they held rallies to gain support to get who they wanted in office the main supporters of the Outer Circle rail league in the Upper House were James Monroe of North Melbourne and Francis Beaver of North Yara the main Southern Railway house supporter was Thomas bent of Brighton at this time most members of the House were land owners and in this case for the group all owned large amounts of land alongside where the line was proposed to go on December 23rd 1874 Duncan gills minister of Railways in Victoria introduced a bill that included construction of the outer Railway line over the bill quickly faced immense backlash and did not pass the house despite this a land survey occurred which changed the route slightly to allow it to pass through campwell 1875 so the beginning of the end for the Outer Circle plan with the cord government being voted out for the new McCulla government who had much less favorable views on the idea by 1876 it had become clear the government was siding with the Southern Railway league in November 1876 mllo proposed a new Railway bill which included the elwick to Oakley Railway as well as a series of Railways from cerg hi highberg and corfield to try and please both sides despite the attempts to please both sides the fact that it would still require the purchase of the Melbourne and H Bay United Railway company meant that the bill was hotly contested and eventually it was put aside despite the Outer Circle Line surviving this the proposal of direct lines from the city tend the northern suburbs caused it to lose support in some of these regions the premier once again changed in 1877 with a Barry government entering power their Minister for Railways John Woods didn't support either the Southern Railway or the Outer Circle instead opting for a direct line from Oakley to Spencer Street running south from spener street across the Yara running along the South Bank of the Yara passing the Botanical Gardens on a bridge and then going through South Yara prahan corfield and onto Oak due to outcry over a rail line passing around the botanical gardens an amendment was made that made it run along the north Bank bypassing flender Street and running via jym and Richmond then onto southa this new proposal had some success however it started to face trouble in the Upper House the Upper House attempted to amend the bill making it pass through the M Hopson Bay United railway station at flender Street then follow the M Hopson Bay United line to hathorn however Barry was opposed to these changes and tried to reverse them however the Upper House did not allow it eventually the line was removed from the bill and it passed the upper house without issue later in 1877 with the Gib L line practically complete Barry once again tried to push his direct line through through once again it ran into difficulty and once again it was put aside by this point the Outer Circle Line was practically dead with meetings of the Outer Circle Railway League becoming less and less frequent one supporter of the idea that remained was higan Botham who was still engineerin chief of Victorian Railways he supported the OU Circle and made numerous attempts to force the line however he was repeatedly shut down by the Barry government eventually on the 8th of January 1878 higen Botham and 136 other government officials were removed from their positions likely due to their opposition of the Barry government shortly after this action the government reopened negotiations with melin and Hobson's Bay United Railway finally on the 6th of July 1878 both parties agreed to a price of 1,320 1820 the same as was offered in 1873 with the company purchased debate still continued over how to bring the line into the city Woods once again proposed his direct route running along the former company lines to southa before branching off and going direct to Oakley an attempt was made by bent in the lower house to shift the Line south following the original path from elwick however with the Outer Circle out of the picture most of its supporters shifted to supporting a direct route and it passed both houses on the 14th of August 1878 as Railway construction act number 604 and opened not long after in April 1879 The Rebirth of the Outer Circle came very suddenly in the early 1880s this time was marked by immense economic growth in the colon due to the booming land market with this growth growth also came a new demand for Railway with land prices often greatly increasing with proximity to Railways in 1881 the Barry government who had killed the original Outer Circle was voted out in favor of oen under this government Thomas Ben became the minister of Railways and he was eager to expand the colony's Railway Network despite being against the Outer Circle in earlier years he had now seemingly changed sides as one of the lines included in bent's 1882 Railway Construction Bill was lined from Hawthorne to Marina which had been advocated for by the reformed Outer Circle League this however proved to be a false start as the oan government was voted out of office quickly because of corruption allegations they're replaced by the service government who greatly changed the way the Victorian Railways operated they weakened the ministry of Railways and created a board for the management of the railways at the head of this board they appointed Richard spite who gained experience working with the Midland Railway company in England spite experience proved to work against him however as his experience working with a densely populated Midland region of England did not appropriately translate over to the scarely populated colony of Victoria quickly made friends with Duncan gills the new minister of Railways and the two worked together extensively on builds to expand the colony's Railway Network this resulted in the railway Construction Bill of 1884 nicknamed the octopus bill this bill included 65 new lines spread All Around The Colony one of these lines just so happened to be the Outer Circle railway from Fairfield to Oakley this bill entered the legislative assembly on October 7th 1884 it passed with little issue and was able to enter the legislative Council on November 19th passing on December 2nd and finally passed Parliament on December 12th 1884 having only lost six lines in the process it would be over 3 years until work on the Outer Circle began a contract for the construction of the line was awarded on the 12th of March 1888 to M Graham and wck for £15,600 October track laying began near Oakley and it reached the first station Waverly Road in May of that year despite the first section of the line being completed trains would not run along it for more than a year until March 1890 when the Burnley to Waverly Road line completed construction on the north side of the line track Ling began in March 1889 however little progress was made due to delays on the bridge over the Yara and the railways Department pushing for an increased focus on the south side of the line between September 1889 and April 1890 track laning was conducted along the Waverly to camwell section of the line This section opened to traffic on May 30th after a short period of ballasting the final section of the line from Riverdale to Fairfield par took a while longer to complete track laying from riversdale began in May 1890 however it taken until October to finish the Ling as the viaduct over the Yara had faced major delays the rest of 1890 was spent polishing the line finishing Bridges and refining stations the final section of the line was opened on the 24th of March 1891 3 years after construction began the entire construction went off nearly without casualty except for a pair of workers that drowned in the Yara at the beginning of 1889 in total the reported cost of the Outer Circle amounted to 13642 alongside a further 297 361,000 spent on purchasing the land along the line the line begins in the south at Oakley Station Oakley Station had two platforms one on either site three tracks ran through the station with one on either side and a center one for through traffic shortly after Crossing warle Road at a level crossing the line splits into two with the Outer Circle branching North and the main line continuing towards southa and the private Ros toown Railway branching off South the Outer Circle continued parallel to the main line on a single track for around 900 M at porth Road the Outer Circle began to Branch North away from the main Gibs land line here was the location of the first station Outer Circle Junction this station was outli in the original contract however it soon became redundant was not actually constructed in its place a temporary block post was constructed only for used during the construction of the line initially it operated in September 1889 and then closed till December when it was reopened again it was once again closed when the line opened for passengers in March 1890 and was dismantled the line continued North to dandong Road where it passed as a level crossing located between Dong road and Waverly Road was our first proper station Waverly Road station known as Waverly during its construction Waverly Road station was located between the level Crossings at dandong Road and Waverly Road it they had two platforms one serving Outer Circle trains and one serving Burnley trains just to the north of the station a sighting was located which you saw a little use upon its opening wavely Road was a staff station however after about a year of operating Staffing became less certain initially the Waverly Road Crossing was started however it soon became uncontrolled to Safe cost at the far end of the station just after the crossing the two lines diverted with the Burnley line winding to follow Gardener's Creek and the Outer Circle Line crossing over it the Outer Circle across Garder Creek on Gardner Creek Bridge also known as the Black Bridge because of its outer coating of black tar this bridge was a Trestle Bridge of all Timber construction with 31 spans of 4 1/2 M totaling to about 140 M after the bridge the line enters a cutting for around 600 M exiting the cutting and running at ground level for a short distance before entering another cutting on the approach to ashburton ash Burton station was opened under the name Norwood however was renamed at the end of 1890 it was located just north of the High Street bridge and consisted of two platforms to the north side of the station a siding was located which like Waverly Road saw little use ash Bon was staffed for the entire duration that the Outer Circle Line was open after leaving ash Burton the line continued as a single track through a cutting for a further 1.1 km at the end of The Cutting was Hardwell station Hardwell was extremely similar to ash Burton with two platforms there was also likely a good sighting at the station however however it doesn't seem likely that this was ever used the line continued at ground level for a further 2 km before the next next station riversdale was reached riversdale was located just north of riversdale Road and at its opening consisted of a du platform with one serving as up and one serving as a down platform on the south side of the station a single track continues to the South half of the Outer Circle whilst on the Northern section it branches into two one of the branches goes to camberwell where it was possible to interchange with little line trains the other passes under the little line heading towards Fairfield Park initially the connection to camberwell was double track however however was lowered to a single track in 1892 because of lack of use in 1893 the Dam's platform was closed however it still saw some limited use as a good sighing the little line passed over the Outer Circle on a bridge no station was located here so direct transfer from the Outer Circle Line to the little line was not possible on the north side of the underpath another loot line was constructed to the L line this one connecting it East with the intention of bringing firewood from L to the northern suburbs however this never saw fruition with Loop only being used for Bast trains and occasional special tour trains a signal box of very briefly exist Ed on the connection of this Loop to the world line however it was close in 1993 and by that point it was already in disrepair just north of Junction the line enters a cutting and passes below Canterbury Road before entering Shenley station Shenley had two platforms however only the East platform was regularly used Shenley was a very small station and it saw very little use after Shenley the line entered a long cutting crossed by several steel and Brick Road Bridges roads brought over the line on these Bridges included Ruben's Grove Mont ala road and bansbury road after this it passes underneath White Horse Road before pulling into deep Dean station deep Dean station was located between White Horse Road at Ember crom Street and on opening it had two platforms a good platform may have also been provided however if it was it was never used as the line continues it crosses Burke Road curves and progresses East at Normandy Road we find East Q station yet another dual platform station with a good sighting located to the Western end the line progressed East under High Street and Belford Road in a cutting before meeting Willis Road at a level crossing on the west side of Willis Road is Willis station with two platforms Wills was extremely overbuilt for the region it served and practically saw no use after Willis we reached the river Yara which the largest bridge of the line was constructed this bridge was perhaps the best example of how overbuilt the line was the bridge was built with space for two tracks with an additional foot Bridge also included for a Railway Bridge that would only end up seeing traffic for barely over 2 years this was incredibly overbuilt in every aspect on the north side of the ARA the line crosses hi highberg road before entering its last station Fulham gr Fulham gr was redundant located less than 700 M down the line from Fairfield it consisted of two platforms and a gate house for the heidleberg road crossing and a small station building after full and Gran the line pulls into Fairfield Park where a new platform was built to accommodate traffic for the Outer Circle Line Fairfield Park had a siding however was unlikely was ever used for Outer Circle trains the first section of the Outer Circle to open was the Oakley to Waverly Road section on the 24th of March 1890 on opening this section of the line saw 14 trains each way daily with six on Sundays the trains on this section were H by old n-class Locos when acquired from the Melvin H Bay United rail company in 1878 these trains hold two fixed wheel Victorian Railways passenger carriages with a Capac of about 70 the line continued to be operated like this even after the Waverly Road to camberwell section opened in May after this time trains ran from camberwell to Oakley with some Services being terminated at wav Road When the Northern section of the line opened in March 1891 it was operated independently of the rest of the out of circle with trains running from Fairfield Park to riversale with the opportunity to exchange with the rest of the out of circle at riversdale on opening this section of the line used an A-Class locomotive which carried a single American Star wooden bogey passenger car which could carry about 60 passengers this setup only lasted for a few months however as the heavy L class was causing excessive wear on the lighter steel rails of the Outer Circle because of this it was chosen to switch to the lighter mclass while still maintaining the same Carriage setup this situation was shortlived however as the mclass still wore away at the tracks because of this it was chosen once again to downgrade it this time to a C-Class that had also been acquired from m h Bay United route it is also likely that in this time the carriages were also downgraded to fixed wheel carriages limiting the cap Capac to only about 30 passengers with the mclass motor that was operating the northern section line now frayed up it was moved to the lower segment replacing the Aging n-class the northern section of the line continued to fail to live up to expectations and it was very soon running into demand problems there simply wasn't the demand along the line for a train to be justified it and it was soon operating in a significant loss it was because of this that a mere 17 months after initial opening on October 11th 1892 the final passion to train ran the full Fairfield to Riverdale line the next day on the 12th in an attempt to cut cost along the line the train was replaced by a new Rowan rail car the first of these rail cars was acquired by Victorian Railways from wilham Rowan of Copenhagen and had been operated through the network for several years before the opening of the Outer Circle powered by a single steam boiler this Rowan car was capable of reaching 48 kmph on a fat grade r car number two was not purchased by Victorian Railways however it was constructed using a spare boiler that had been provided for the first car this car was used to hold a fixed wheel AB Carriage with a capacity of 34 people but not even this could save the northern section of the OU line as the line continued to fail to turn a profit on April 12th 1893 it was closed in its entirety the southern section line continued to operate at a decrease capacity for several more years using n and M Class locomotives on December 9th 1895 the section between Ashburn and Oakley closed leaving only trains running from camberwell to Ashburn this final section closed 17 months later in May 1897 and not a single part of the original Outer Circle was left operating a May 14 months after its closure the Outer Circle would see life once again on July 4th 1898 the camp world to ash Burton section once again saw trains now in the form of a C-Class engine with a single ABAB class Carriage this configuration would only last 22 months however until parts of the northern section began to reopen on the 14th of May 1900 the R to deep Dan section of the line was reopened and this date also saw some other changes this included the opening of two new stations East camberwell and Stanley East cell was located on the junction between the lard and Outer Circle lines with two upper platforms and a single lower platform Stanley was located between deep Dean and Shenley station and only had a single platform because of East Cambell's location on the junction of the Outer Circle in the L line it was now possible for trains to run the whole ash Burton to deepan line with interchange of the low line possible at East camwell during this time the regular engine used was an mclass engine however nearly every engine saw use on the line at one point for the carriages used it was normally a bclass carriage followed by an ABD guard passenger van the Outer Circle continued to prove quite uneconomic to run by mid1 1906 the steam engines were replaced by zclass motor engines hauling American type passenger carriages these lasted for several years however were replaced once again in June 1910 this time with the f-class motor engines over this time the train would own the name the Deep Dean Dasher this deep Dean Dasher would continue to run from ash Burton to deep Dean for another 14 years until 1924 by this time electrification of mobin's rail network had fully began and ash Burton was now a Target the first electric trains run the camberwell to ash Burton section on November 2nd 1924 these Services were run by the swing door dog box trains the line to deep de never saw enough traffic to justify electrification so the steam trains would continue now terminating at riversdale not long after in February 1925 the northern section of the line was extended to East coup once again however however it was only for a limited Goods service and never saw passengers due to low patronage on the remaining portion of the Deep D daser it would begin to wind down in 1926 with the f-class replaced by two aec petrol powered rail Motors in August this operation only last a year however as the last deep Dean Dash ran on October 10th 1927 the East coup Goods line would continue to function for a further 16 years finally terminating in 1943 this Goods train would use an A2 class locomotive likely the largest locomotive ever used anywhere on the Outer Circle the south side of the line was more successful however maintaining a steady patronage with its electric trains by 1934 trains began through run to the city removing the need for passengers to Interchange at camberwell eventually the swing door trains were phased out for the sliding door tap trains which would continue to serve the line for decades to come in 1906 a new station Harwell Hill was opened between Riverdale and Heartwell station in 1909 this station was renamed Harwell and the old Heartwell was renamed bwood in 1908 Golf Links a station to serve the Riverdale Golf Club was opened between Riverdale and the new Hartwell this club would move out of the location in 1927 however the station would remain in 1936 the station was renamed Willison in 1948 the line was extended several hundred meters down after ash Burton to a new station called alaman this station served a new postwar housing estate it was named after the battle of L laain in Egypt during World War II the only portion of the northern section ever open again was a short 500 M section from Fairfield which was used by good trains to the Australian paper mill in alfington this siding was used to bring coal and paper PP into the factory when it opened in 1919 the freight was H by steam engines however with overhead wiring going in sometime in the 1950s the steam locomotives were replaced by e and l class electric locomotives most of the r of way of the Outer Circle has been preserved through Parkland and Trails almost all of the track along the line was ripped up and sold during and after the second world war and most stations had their buildings removed or were left to rough the infrastructure that couldn't easily be removed such as Bridges and cuting have mostly been preserved where the line used to Branch from the GBS land line in the South a new station is located named huale this station was opened in 1925 and rebuilt as part of the level crossing removal project in 2018 soon after we reached the first Parkland almost the entire section from huale to Waverly Road is the Outer Circle Line a park which includes a walking trail and an urban Forest at dandong Road the formal level crossing is onone and the road has grown to be a massive six Lane Highway much greater than the unpaved dirt track it was when trains were running over it at the former side of Waverly Road station we find a car park this car park serves East Melvin station on the Glen Waverly line after the closing of the darling to Waverly Road section of the line trains only ran to Darling however by 1930 the line had been extended all the way to Glen Waverly the Black Bridge which formerly brought trains over Garden of Creek stood in almost perfect condition for over 4 decades after line was closed at the outbreak of the second world war however the government was trying desperately to find a way to gain some money one way this was done was by disassembling the Black Bridge and selling its wood by the mid 1940s the bridge was almost entirely gone and today nothing remains in the section from Alam the garders creek has all been converted to a linear park with extensive seating and foliage one interesting thing to note about this portion of the line is that despite they're not having been tracks here since the 1940s the overhead wires are still in place these wires are used to connect overhead on the Alam line to the substation at East Mel the only section of the Outer Circle to still see train is the Alam line this line is served by extra 100 trains usually in three car sets this line sees roughly 65 trains each way on weekdays with 58 on Saturdays and 50 on Sundays this is one of the Lesser used lines on the Metro Network however it still sees decent patronage the entire section of the northern line from riversdale to Willis has been converted into one long linear Park all of the cuttings and bridges from the original line still remain with the exception of the high Street Bridge which was removed when the road was widened nothing notable remains of any of the stations along the segment the least recognizable section of the line is the part from Willis made to Fairfield practically all this way is taken up by the Chandler Highway which even used the original Yara viaduct in its early stages as the highway widened a new bridge was constructed however the old bridge Still Remains alongside it the former location of for GR station is now a gra field with no CP purpose therefore field station is still open and it remains part of the HST bridge line in present there is few plans for the future of the alamain line I personally find it unlikely that it will receive any major adjustments anytime soon the most plausible near-term subject I can imagine is the removal of the Riverdale and Prospect Hill Road level Crossings this would require the complete reconstruction of Rivery station and is not likely to happen anytime soon especially given the low patronage of the line as for extensions in the long term I see it likely that it will someday be extended to East Melvin or even further to hou out this link would allow for more easily transferring between the dandon group and Burnley group lines it is likely that the restoration of this line would spend most of its time as a bridge as running at the ground level would simply no longer be feasible by running above ground it would allow for the line to avoid obstacles such as Garder Creek the monach freeway the Glen Waverly line Waverly Road and dandon Road it would also allow for the preservation of most of the existing Parkland that occupies the land this would likely require the rebuilding of huale in East Melvin station I find it highly unlikely that the northern section will ever be reinstated it's has been so far modified that restoration would be incredibly damaging and expensive the region is also well served by trams and a demand for the train is simply not present this conclusion is my final closing thoughts on the um on this video uh it's the only unscripted part of the video I just wanted to give my final thoughts um and I'm to be honest I'm sick of script writing um really through what I've shown you can tell that the it when it was built the Outer Circle was never going to be valuable and by the time that it reached operation and the depression that came in the 1890s in Victoria due to the crash of the land market it simply came too late and was just too expensive to maintain by the T Railways if it hadn't been built later or if especially if the northern section had have been maintained its restoration through the modern day and not been closed in the 20s it might have still been a functional line however there simply just wasn't the demand for it and yeah that's why I closed um I want to give credit for uh the books I used this research most of my most of my information came from um uh a book simply titled the Outer Circle by bird s and herbit I think that's how you say that and I also got a bit of information on locomotives and a bit more on the Outer Circle from Victorian Railways to 1962 by Leo J harrian um this video turned out to be hell of a lot longer than I planned it to be um uh initially the video was going to be like 10 5 10 minutes I think I mean I've only edited up to like the fourth paragraph so far uh fourth card or whatever you call them but um it's it's probably going to be damn near 30 minutes I'm not going to do another video this long for a very long time oh this is my first video but I'm not yeah um so yeah expect shorter videos uh thank you for listening and watching if you've gotten this far uh yeah thanks bye
