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The Lost Opportunity of Melbourne's Outer Circle Railway

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The Lost Opportunity of Melbourne's Outer Circle Railway The Lost Opportunity of Melbourne’s Outer Circle Railway Trevor McKenna, B.A. Dip. Ed. This thesis is submitted in total fulfilment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (By Research) Faculty of Education and the Arts Federation University P.O. Box 663 University Drive, Mount Helen Ballarat, Victoria, 3353 Australia Submitted for re-examination 7 December, 2017 ii ABSTRACT This thesis examines a little known railway line in Melbourne, the Outer Circle Railway (OCR) running from Oakleigh in the south-east to Fairfield in the north. There is great significance to its east-north trajectory, because I will argue, it was conceptualised as a major part of the Melbourne system, for the future; a future that ostensibly lasted only two years, before the economic depression of the 1890s caused it to close in stages. It further brought in many more strands to the Melbourne transport nexus, as it circumnavigated the inner suburbs. I ask the key question ‘was the Outer Circle Railway a lost opportunity’? Though considered one of the great public transport cities of the world, Melbourne with its extensive rail and tramway networks succumbed to the winds of change, embodied by the Fordist principles of private car ownership, freeway building and traffic systems. The public transport budget was cut in the second half of the twentieth century – leaving Greater Melbourne in constant gridlock, in the twenty-first century. I use documentary analysis to examine primary and secondary documents, to comprehend whether the almost immediate denigration of the OCR, by newspapers and most historians, was warranted. Certainly I find many contemporaneous champions of the OCR, which was built to the highest British standard, as was the entire Victorian Railways system. My key finding is that the OCR rail line could be utilised in the modern era. The OCR route is pointed squarely towards Tullamarine airport, and could be used as a basis for the long-sought rail link to the airport. The decision of the Andrews Labor Government in 2014 to abandon the contentious East-West road tunnel in favour of rail projects reflects the need for a growing city to privilege public transport, as it did in the nineteenth century. iii Acknowledgements I would like to thank my tireless supervisor, Dr. Anne Beggs-Sunter for her dedication to task. Also to her son Patrick Sunter who is working on a doctoral thesis in town planning and public transport, and his scraps of information, highly appropriate towards my endeavours were invaluable. I would like to thank Tony Fettes, my oldest friend and supporter. Libby Smith from Melbourne University, for her unwavering attentiveness to my sometimes naive questions; as well as my beautiful doctor in residence, Faith Theunissen, who is much more talented than I, and I hope will be recognised in the near future, for her work on ‘how an immigrant finds a sense of place and belonging’. Also thanks to Caron and Luke Cavalier for being a familial touchstone in Ballarat, which has sustained my time here. Thanks also to Rod Smith former editor (retired) of RailNews Victoria, who unwittingly had his brains picked on numerous occasions. As well to Mr Gram A. Lee, thank you for your invaluable proof-reading assistance. And heartfelt thanks to the ARE (Association of Railway Enthusiasts), where as retail manager of their store in Market Street, Melbourne for seven years, I learned that, ‘an appreciation of railways can sustain a person through their whole life’ and that the skills and artisanship of our forebears, including the humble navigators or “navvies” as they were known, who through blood, guts and determination, with only their picks and shovels, forged the rail lines that we travel today. iv Contents Illustrations Index...................................................................................................................................6 Prologue..................................................................................................................................................9 Chapter One - Introduction..................................................................................................................10 The Early History of Melbourne’s Railways..........................................................................................11 Theoretical influences...........................................................................................................................19 Methodology........................................................................................................................................28 Chapter Two - Literature Review. The Outer Circle Railway framed within the context of Melbourne’s Urban Planning ..............................................................................................................31 Chapter Three –Land Speculation and the Politics Regarding the Victorian Railways and the Construction of the Outer Circle Railway............................................................................. ..............40 The Effects of the Railways on Victorian Cities.....................................................................................42 The Influence of Railways on Melbourne’s CBD design........................................................................44 The Function of Land Speculation for the Small Land Holder...............................................................46 The Roles of Significant Personalities Concerning Railways in the Boom and Bust of Old Melbourne Town.....................................................................................................................................................47 George Meudell on the Collapse of the Land Boom.............................................................................59 Chapter Four – The Motor Age and Planning for Melbourne’s Future The Seduction by Motor Carriage and the Americanisation of Australia’s Transport Future...................................................................................................................................................63 Melbourne Metropolitan Transport Planning – the 1950 and 1960s...................................................73 The East/ West Tunnel Debacle – 2014................................................................................................76 Chapter Five – The Outer Circle Railway—the Basis for Future Development Was the Outer Circle Railway a Redundant Idea?................................................................................84 Railway-Phobia............................................................................................................. .......................89 Chapter Six - An explanation of “How Melbourne’s Outer Circle Railway could be re-incorporated; With a Proposal for a High-Speed Train Service to Tullamarine Airport”.... ....................................92 Chapter Seven – Conclusion...........................................................................................................103 Bibliography........................................................................................................................................105 5 Appendices.........................................................................................................................................112 1. Time line of Victoria’s History and Planning Documents 2. Track Report: Epping 3. Track Report: Upfield 4. Statistical Analysis of the Patronage of the Outer Circle Line – 1890-1893 5. Letter to - The Hon. Daniel Andrews MP. From Allan Rodger Chair, Melbourne Habitat Trust 6. Maps List of Illustrations Map of the trajectory through Camberwell of the partially operating Outer Circle Line in 1922..............7 Map showing the complete Outer Circle Railway..................................................................................8 Lines of the Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay United Railway Company..................................................11 Milk Dock, Platform 1, Flinders Street Station, circa 1920...................................................................12 Lines of the Railway Construction Act (Octopus Act), 1884.................................................................14 Trajectory of the Inner Circle Line........................................................................................................15 Map of former, current and proposed Melbourne rail lines................................................................18 Parking in front of the former Bank of Victoria Building, 251 Collins Street........................................24 Victorian Railways ‘Suburban Lines’ map circa 1891............................................................................34 Real Estate poster, Kew Park Estate, circa 1888...................................................................................35 The original Melbourne fish market, 1888, on the corner of Swanston and Flinders Streets..............45 Collins' Street Directory and Public Guide, 1922-3, Royal Park, with Inner Circle Line........................47 Munro and Baillieu real estate poster, advertising Grange Estate, Dandenong, circa 1885................55 Thomas Bent Land Company real estate poster, Maribyrnong Road, circa 1888.................................58 Melbourne Urban Area Map, with Urban Rail System.........................................................................68 The last private house standing on the Australian Paper Mills
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