The Lancefield railway line, or the Clarkefield and Lancefield Railway, was a former

broad gauge A broad-gauge railway is a railway with a track gauge (the distance between the rails) broader than the used by standard-gauge railways. Broad gauge of , more known as Russian gauge, is the dominant track gauge in former Soviet Union countries ...

railway in central

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Queen Victoria (1819–1901), Queen of the United Kingdom and Empress of India * Victoria (state), a state of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, Canada, a provincial capital * Victoria, Seychelles, the capi ...

, connecting

Clarkefield railway station Clarkefield railway station is a regional railway station on the Deniliquin line, part of the Victorian railway network. It serves the north-western suburb and town of Clarkefield, in Victoria, Australia. Clarkefield station is a ground leve ...

on the Bendigo line to

Kilmore railway station Kilmore railway station was a railway station servicing the town of Kilmore, Victoria, Australia. It was located on Rutledge Street, Kilmore, to the east of Assumption College. It opened on 1 October 1888 along with the first section of the ...

on the Heathcote line, via

Lancefield Lancefield is a town in the Shire of Macedon Ranges local government area in Victoria, Australia north of the state capital, Melbourne, 33.6km south of Puckapunyal and had a population of at least 2,743 at the 2021 census. History The are ...

. However, the ill-fated Lancefield-Kilmore section operated only briefly in the 1890s so, for much of its history, the line existed simply as a branch line, with its terminus at Lancefield station.

History

Clarkefield-Lancefield section

The branch line off the Melbourne-

Bendigo Bendigo ( ) is an Australian city in north-central Victoria. The city is located in the Bendigo Valley near the geographical centre of the state and approximately north-west of Melbourne, the state capital. As of 2022, Bendigo has a popula ...

line originated at

Clarkefield Clarkefield () is a town in Victoria (Australia), Victoria, Australia, north-west of Melbourne, Melbourne's Melbourne city centre, Central Business District, located within the City of Hume and the Shire of Macedon Ranges Local government areas ...

, then known as Lancefield Junction, and ran to Bolinda, Monegeetta, North Monegeetta,

Romsey Romsey ( ) is a town in the Test Valley district of Hampshire, England. The town is situated northwest of Southampton, southwest of Winchester and southeast of Salisbury. It sits on the outskirts of the New Forest, just over northeast of ...

and

, and was opened on 6 June 1881. The Lancefield-Clarkefield section of the branch was closed on 13 August 1956, when the wooden trestle bridge near Clarkefield required extensive maintenance and repairs. Though the railway right of way no longer exists, the former track bed can still be seen in many places, most notably the embankments and cuttings leading onto the decaying trestle bridge, which are visible from the road-side at the Bolinda bridge. The old Lancefield railway station fell into a state of disrepair after its closure but has since been refurbished as the Old Railway Station B & B and Carriage Cafe. The station building and goods shed from Monegeeta were relocated to a farming property just north of Romsey, on Lancefield Road, where they remain today as farm outbuildings. None of the other stations remain intact. The sites of Bolinda and North Monegeeta stations and, to a lesser extent, those of Monegeeta and Romsey, are still identifiable.

Lancefield-Kilmore section

On 6 April 1892, the line was extended from Lancefield across the

Great Dividing Range The Great Dividing Range, also known as the East Australian Cordillera or the Eastern Highlands, is a cordillera system in eastern Australia consisting of an expansive collection of mountain ranges, plateaus and rolling hills. It runs roughl ...

to Kilmore. This was one of the most infamous

white elephant A white elephant is a possession that its owner cannot dispose of without extreme difficulty, and whose cost, particularly that of maintenance, is out of proportion to its usefulness. In modern usage, it is a metaphor used to describe an object, ...

s among the many late-nineteenth century Victorian rail projects, on a par with the

Outer Circle railway line The Outer Circle Railway was opened in stages in 1890 and 1891, as a steam-era suburban railway line, in Melbourne, Australia. It traversed much of the modern City of Boroondara, including the suburbs of (from north to south) Kew East, Cambe ...

in suburban Melbourne. Due to the steepness of the topography, not only was the Lancefield-Kilmore railway meandering and expensive to construct, it also ran through almost uninhabited country and, with little or no passenger custom or freight demand. The line was so unsuccessful that it was closed on 1 June 1897, although the tracks were not torn up until 1917. Some of the old right of way is visible around the Lancefield Gap and on the approach to Kilmore. For such a relatively short section of railway, the line had a significant number of stations or, at least, named stopping places. From Lancefield to Kilmore, stopping places included Mount William, Goldie, Springfield, High Park and Forbes

References

{{Victorian Railway Lines, branch Closed regional railway lines in Victoria (state) Railway lines opened in 1881 Railway lines closed in 1956 1881 establishments in Australia