Melbourne And Hobson's Bay United Railway Company
The Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company was a railway company in Victoria, Australia. The company was incorporated on 20 January 1853 to build the line from Melbourne to the port of Sandridge, now Port Melbourne. The proposal met considerable opposition, despite the inadequacy and high costs of using horse drays and bullock wagons to carry merchandise from the port to the city. However, the combination of chaotic transport conditions and the extravagant financial prosperity that followed the gold rush led the community to realise the urgent need for railway communication on various routes, of which this one was prominent. The colony's pastoral somnolence was interrupted, never to recur, and a "railway boom" set in. The line was constructed to "broad gauge" in keeping with an agreement between the three then extant colonies to adopt that gauge – subsequently abandoned by the government of New South Wales. The first engineer for the line was William Snell Chauncy ...
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