Geelong–Ballarat Railway Line
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Geelong–Ballarat Railway Line
The Geelong–Ballarat railway line is a broad-gauge railway in western Victoria, Australia between the cities of Geelong and Ballarat. Towns on the route include Bannockburn, Lethbridge, Meredith, Elaine and Lal Lal. Major traffic includes general freight from the Mildura line, and grain. History After the railway from Melbourne to Geelong was opened in 1857, agitation soon started in Ballarat for a railway link to serve the rapidly growing gold mining area. The prospectus for the £1,000,000 "Geelong, Ballaarat and North Western Railway Company" (the different spelling "Ballaarat" persisted until the early 1990s) was advertised in January 1854 with the Francis Bell as the engineer. Bell surveyed and designed the line, and lithographed plans were made available with the prospectus. Because private railway companies were unable to raise the necessary capital in London, the Victorian colonial government took over the construction of trunk railway lines to Ballarat and ...
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Double-track Railway
A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lines were built as double-track because of the difficulty of co-ordinating operations before the invention of the telegraph. The lines also tended to be busy enough to be beyond the capacity of a single track. In the early days the Board of Trade did not consider any single-track railway line to be complete. In the earliest days of railways in the United States most lines were built as single-track for reasons of cost, and very inefficient timetable working systems were used to prevent head-on collisions on single lines. This improved with the development of the telegraph and the train order system. Operation Handedness In any given country, rail traffic generally runs to one side of a double-track line, not always the same side as ...
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The Argus (Melbourne)
''The Argus'' was an Australian daily morning newspaper in Melbourne from 2 June 1846 to 19 January 1957, and was considered to be the general Australian newspaper of record for this period. Widely known as a conservative newspaper for most of its history, it adopted a left-leaning approach from 1949. ''The Argus''s main competitor was David Syme's more liberal-minded newspaper, ''The Age ''The Age'' is a daily newspaper in Melbourne, Australia, that has been published since 1854. Owned and published by Nine Entertainment, ''The Age'' primarily serves Victoria (Australia), Victoria, but copies also sell in Tasmania, the Austral ...''. History The newspaper was originally owned by William Kerr, who was also Melbourne's town clerk from 1851 to 1856 and had been a journalist at the '' Sydney Gazette'' before moving to Melbourne in 1839 to work on John Fawkner's newspaper, the ''Port Phillip Patriot''. The first edition was published on 2 June 1846. The paper soon became k ...
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Dual Gauge
Dual gauge railroad track has three or four rails, allowing vehicles of two track gauges to run on it. Signalling and sidings are more expensive to install on dual gauge tracks than on two single gauge tracks. Dual gauge is used when there is not enough room for two single tracks or when tracks of two different gauges meet in marshalling yards or train stations. Background The rail gauge is the most fundamental specification of a railway. Rail tracks and Wheelset (rail transport), wheelsets are built within engineering tolerances that allow optimum lateral movement of the wheelsets between the rails. Pairs of rails that become too wide or narrow in gauge will cause derailments, especially if in excess of normal gauge-widening on curves. Given the requirement for gauge to be within very tight limits, when the designed distance between the pair of wheels on a wheelset differs even slightly from that of others on a railway, track must be built to two specific gauges. That is ...
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153hp Walker Railmotor
The family of Walker railmotors were a type of diesel railcar operated by the Victorian Railways in Australia. After World War II, the Victorian Railways undertook a major rebuilding program known as Operation Phoenix. One of the first tasks was the upgrading of passenger services on country branch lines, through the replacement of 23 wooden-bodied railmotors built in the 1920s, and the withdrawal of steam locomotive hauled mixed trains. An initial order of twelve railcars, six railcars with trailers, and twelve railcars was placed with Walker Brothers, Wigan, England. It was then extended to include a further ten railmotors and trailers. The first was delivered in 1948, with additions to the fleet running through to 1955. Construction The power units and controls were built by Walker Bros. and shipped out from Wigan England, the underframes were built by Thompsons of Castlemaine and the car bodies were built by Martin & King, in the Melbourne suburb of Armadale. Ass ...
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Western Standard Gauge Railway Line
The Western standard gauge railway line is a standard-gauge railway line in western Victoria, Australia. Completed in 1995, it forms part of the Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor and serves as the principal interstate rail link between Victoria and the western states. The line replaced a number of former broad gauge routes which were gauge converted, and today sees both intrastate and interstate freight traffic, as well as the twice weekly (in each direction) ''The Overland'' passenger service. Major towns on the route include Geelong, Ararat, Horsham and Dimboola. History The first inter-capital link between Melbourne and South Australia was completed in 1887 when the Victorian Railways line was extended to Serviceton on the state border. Known as the Serviceton line, it passed westward from Melbourne through Geelong, Ballarat, Ararat, Stawell, Horsham and Dimboola. In 1889, the direct Melbourne–Ballarat route was opened. In the 1970s, most interstate lines in Austr ...
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Warrenheip Railway Station
Warrenheip is a closed station located in the town of Warrenheip, on the Serviceton line in Victoria, Australia. The junction of the Geelong-Ballarat line is at the up end of the former station site. The double track Geelong to Ballarat line, which ran through the area, opened in 1862. The station opened in 1873, and became a junction in 1879, when a branch line was built towards Gordon station. That branch line eventually became the direct line to Melbourne, which was completed in 1889. The station was one of 35 closed to passenger traffic on 4 October 1981, as part of the ''New Deal'' timetable for country passengers. On 23 February 1994, a number of alterations took place at Warrenheip, including the removal of sidings A, B and C, the crossover from the Geelong-Ballarat line to track A (the down line towards Ballarat station) was abolished and the removed of a number of points and signal posts. In 1995, the double line from Ballarat station to Warrenheip was convert ...
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North Geelong Railway Station
North Geelong railway station is a regional railway station on the Warrnambool line, part of the Victorian railway network and serves the northern Geelong suburb of the same name. The station was opened on 1 August 1883, and the current station building was provided in 1990.North Geelong
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North Geelong Station
Rail Geelong
Initially opened as West Geelong, the station was given its current name on 1 January 1886.North Geelong
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The station is the
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Serviceton Railway Line
The Ararat railway line (formerly known as the Serviceton and Western lines) is a railway line in Victoria, Australia. It links the state capital of Melbourne, Victoria, Melbourne to the cities of Ballarat and Ararat, Victoria, Ararat via the Regional Rail Link. The line began construction in 1874, when the Geelong–Ballarat railway line, original line to Ballarat was extended westwards to Beaufort railway station, Victoria, Beaufort, eventually reaching Serviceton railway station, Serviceton at the South Australia–Victoria border dispute, disputed South Australian border in 1887 to form the Victorian part of the Melbourne–Adelaide railway. In 1889, the line became the direct Melbourne−Ballarat railway when it was extended eastwards from Ballarat to Bacchus Marsh railway station, Bacchus Marsh, meeting with another line constructed from Sunshine railway station, Melbourne, Sunshine. In 1995, the line beyond Ararat railway station, Ararat, along with several old branch l ...
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Moorabool River
The Moorabool River is a river in Victoria, Australia, which runs for 160 kilometres through several small towns such as Meredith, Anakie, and Staughton Vale. It runs into the Barwon River at Fyansford. It is believed that the name Moorabool derives from an Aboriginal word meaning the cry of a curlew or a ghost. Bridges The river features several historic bridges, many built of bluestone in the 19th century. Batesford Bridge Batesford was originally the site of a ford crossing the Moorabool River. The first bridge was built by the Corio and Bannockburn shire councils in 1846. Provided with a tollgate, the wooden bridge was located upstream from the ford, but collapsed in 1847. Rebuilt in wood in 1848, it was damaged by flood in 1852 and later repaired. A bluestone bridge was built in 1859, which still exists today as a service road. The current concrete bridge on the Midland Highway was built on a new alignment in 1972.John, McNeil (1990) ''A Journey to Destiny 1890 ...
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Bluestone
Bluestone is a cultural or commercial name for a number of natural dimension stone, dimension or building stone varieties, including: * basalt in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, and in New Zealand * diabase, dolerites in Tasmania, Australia; and in Britain (including Stonehenge) * feldspar, feldspathic sandstone in the US and Canada * limestone in the Shenandoah Valley in the US, from the Hainaut (province), Hainaut quarries in Soignies, Belgium, and from quarries in County Carlow, County Galway and County Kilkenny in Ireland * slate in South Australia It is unrelated to human-made blue brick. Stonehenge The term "bluestone" in Britain is used in a loose sense to cover all of the "foreign", not intrinsic, stones and rock debris at Stonehenge. It is a "convenience" label rather than a geological term, since at least 46 different rock types are represented. One of the most common rocks in the assemblage is known as Preseli spotted dolerite—a chemically altered i ...
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Double Track
A double-track railway usually involves running one track in each direction, compared to a single-track railway where trains in both directions share the same track. Overview In the earliest days of railways in the United Kingdom, most lines were built as double-track because of the difficulty of co-ordinating operations before the invention of the telegraph. The lines also tended to be busy enough to be beyond the capacity of a single track. In the early days the Board of Trade did not consider any single-track railway line to be complete. In the earliest days of railways in the United States most lines were built as single-track for reasons of cost, and very inefficient timetable working systems were used to prevent head-on collisions on single lines. This improved with the development of the telegraph and the train order system. Operation Handedness In any given country, rail traffic generally runs to one side of a double-track line, not always the same side ...
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