The Malmsbury Viaduct is a large brick and stone masonry arch bridge over the

Coliban River The Coliban River, an inland perennial river of the northcentral catchment, part of the Murray-Darling basin, is located in the lower Riverina bioregion and Central Highlands region of the Australian state of Victoria. The headwaters of the C ...

Malmsbury Malmsbury is a town in central Victoria, Australia on the Old Calder Highway (C794), 95 km north-west of the state capital, Melbourne and 11 km north-west of Kyneton. Situated close by the Coliban River, Malmsbury has a population ...

on the Bendigo Railway in Victoria Australia. It was erected as part of the Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway between 1858 and 1861, and was at the time the largest masonry arch railway bridge built in Victoria. Construction of the Bendigo line commenced under the

Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway Company The Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway Company was a railway company in Victoria, Australia. It was established on 8 February 1853 to build a railway from Melbourne to Echuca on the Victorian-NSW border and a branch railway to ...

in 1858, but this private consortium met with financial difficulties when it was unable to raise sufficient funds, and was bought out by the Victorian colonial government in 1860 when it formed the

Victorian Railways The Victorian Railways (VR), trading from 1974 as VicRail, was the state-owned operator of most rail transport in the Australian state of Victoria from 1859 to 1983. The first railways in Victoria were private companies, but when these companie ...

Department. The contract for the first stage of the line from Footscray to Sandhurst (now Bendigo), was let to

Cornish and Bruce Cornish & Bruce was a railway contracting company in Victoria, Australia in the mid nineteenth century. The partnership comprised William Crocker Cornish, a building contractor born in Cornwall, England,John Maxwell'Cornish, William Crocker (1815� ...

for £3,356,937.2s.2d ($6.714 million) with work commencing on 1 June 1858. Completion of the permanent way was to be by 31 July 1861. The design work was then taken over by Captain Andrew Clarke, R. E., Surveyor-General of Victoria, with the bridge designs completed by William Bryson CE, Head Draftsman, who was responsible for many of the large structures such including bridges and viaducts under the supervision of George Christian Darbyshire for the Victorian Railway. William O’Hara, Senior Draftsman with the railways department, also had experience in the design of masonry structures and so probably also contributed to the design of the viaduct. The bridge is over 100m long with five 18.3 metre spans, standing about 25 metres high. 132,000 cubic feet of bluestone for the bridge was quarried at the east end of Malmsbury and carted to the site by horse and drays. The foundation stone for the viaduct was laid on 25 October 1859 and the bridge was completed on 24 October 1860. It was listed on the

Victorian Heritage Register The Victorian Heritage Register (VHR) lists places deemed to be of cultural heritage significance to the State of Victoria, Australia. It has statutory weight under the Heritage Act 2017. The Minister for Planning is the responsible Minister. ...

in May 2000. A celebration of the 150th anniversary of this event was held in 2010 organised by the Malmsbury Historical Society.Royal Historical Society of Victoria, The Sandhurst Line, web site last updated 15 December 2010.

References

External links

Public Record Office Victoria
Classic VR photograph of A2-hauled passenger train with

E type carriage The E type carriages were wooden express passenger carriage used on the railways of Victoria, Australia. Originally introduced by Victorian Railways Chairman of Commissioners Thomas James Tait for the interstate service between Melbourne, Syd ...

s crossing the Malmsbury Viaduct, 1945 {{Australian railway bridges, state=autocollapse Railway bridges in Victoria (Australia) Bridges completed in 1860 1859 establishments in Australia Victorian Heritage Register Shire of Macedon Ranges Stone arch bridges in Australia Brick bridges