Link Resolves Old Muddle

Press, Volume CI, Issue 29798, 14 April 1962, Page 11

Link Resolves Old Muddle

(N.Z.P..4.-Reuter— Copyright) MELBOURNE. Completion of 189 miles of 4ft B|in gauge railway line between Melbourne, the Victorian capital, and the New South Wales border town of Albury, has been hailed as one of the most important events in Australian commercial history. The £l2 000.000 project completed trie standard gauge link between Sydney and Melbourne. Australia's two biggest cities, and ended a muddle that began more than 100 years ago as an argument between a Scotsman and an Irishman. When scheduled passenger services begin next Monday, travellers will be able to ride between the two capitate at speeds up to 80 miles an hour, and without the change of trains at Albury which has plagued train passengers for 80 years The new lines run beside and parallel to the existing sft 3,in Victorian Railways line from Albury to Melbourne. It is the first of three new lines which have been urged to complete an east-west standard gauge line between Sydney and Perth, the capital of Western Australia. and more than 2500 miles apart. Irish Gauge Used

The multi-’auge muddle began in 1&50. before any railway lines had been laid in Australia. An Iri-hman. F. W. Shields, wiho was engineer for the Sydney Railway Company, persuaded the New South Wales Government to adopt the sft 3in gauge of his native country Before building began. Shields resigned after a salary dispute and was replaced by James Wallace, a Scot. He, in turn, convinced the colonial Government to use trie standard 4ft BJin gauge of Britain.

But by this time both South Australia and Victoria had

begun broad-gauge lines and ordered rolling stock for them, and they refused to change. Lines from Sydney and Melbourne reached opposite banks of the Murray river in 1881.

It was another three years before a local dispute between Albury, on the New South Wales bank, and Wodonga, on the Victorian bank, over which should have tlie inter-change station, was settled. In that period passengers, livestock and freight were transferred across the Murray in punts. The gauge problem was intensified when Queensland and Western Australia, less rich than the other States, began building 3ft 6in gauge lines, and South Australia added 3ft 6in feeder lines to its main Mt 3in system. Thus when the Commonwealth Government began building the standard gauge transcontinental line between Adelaide and Kalgooriie, Western Australia, in 1917, there were three gauges in use in South Australia. Difficulties In War

Australia learned the evils of broken gauges during the Pacific war. On one occasion it took 36 days to move an 18,000-man division, with vehicles but without artillery, from Sydney to Pertlu The east coast railway system sometimes came to a virtual standstill as break of gauge transfer points at Albury and outside Brisbane became choked with traffic. The new line between Albury and Melbourne thus is seen as an imjwzrtant defence asset as well as a major factor in Australia's economic and commercial development. The new “straight through” service allows goods to be transported between Sydney and Melbourne in 24 hours instead of 48 hours as before. New handling facilities in freight terminals in Sydney and Melbourne, which cost a total of £1.700.000. will accelerate deliveries further. In June a “flexi-van” system will be inaugurated under which entire semitrailer loads will be transferred in one operation to and from specially designed flat airs.

The £12.000.000 cost of the project includes more than £500,000 for conversion of rolling stock.

The Victorian Government has spent another £1,000,000 for 10 new diesel electric locomotives and £145,000 to convert the carriages of its famed passenger train, the "Spirit of Progress." This train, which brought airconditioned travel to Australia. now will run between Sydney and Melbourne instead of between Melbourne and Albury as in the days when the cry of “Albury—.lll change" sent passengers and their luggage struggling Irom one train to another. New Trains Built Two new 14 - carriage trains are being built at a cost of £1,000.000 each for the “straight through" passenger service Their allsteel coaches will have three types of sleeping accommodation, showers, indirect lighting, under-floor heating, a high-fidelity music system and “picture” windows. The Melbourne - Albury link is the first of three recommended by a Government Committee in 1956 The other fanes to be brought up to standard gauge are between Adelaide and Broken Hill and between Kalgoorhe and Perth. The KalgoorLePerth project has already begun. But not everyone «s so happy. In Albury, where much of the city's prosperity rests on its being the change-over point, many of the 23.000 inhabitants view the "straight through" service with misgiving. Th e Austral ian Seamen' ■ Union has claimed that the new line might increase shipping unemployment. An official said 200 Australian seamen already were out of work and that the number might increase if heavy cargo, particularly steel products, was transferred to the railway. 4