The Whitfield railway line was a
narrow gauge
A narrow-gauge railway (narrow-gauge railroad in the US) is a railway with a track gauge (distance between the rails) narrower than . Most narrow-gauge railways are between and .
Since narrow-gauge railways are usually built with Minimum railw ...
railway located in north-eastern
Victoria,
Australia
Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country comprising mainland Australia, the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania and list of islands of Australia, numerous smaller isl ...
, branching from the main
North East railway at
Wangaratta
Wangaratta ( ) is a city in the northeast of Victoria, Australia, from Melbourne along the Hume Highway. The city had a population of 29,808 per the 2021 Australian Census.
The city is located at the confluence, junction of the Ovens River, ...
to the terminus of
Whitfield.
Overview
the Whitfield railway line was the first of four
narrow gauge lines of the Victorian Railways. Unlike the other three narrow gauge lines, it was built through mostly flat, open, agricultural country, following the
King River. The line was built as a narrow gauge one because it was thought that it might be extended into the mountainous country to the south, although that never happened. One of the proposed extensions was to
Tolmie.
The line was opened in March 1899, and was the first of the narrow gauge lines to close, in October 1953. It relied mostly on local agricultural traffic, and opened with a daily
mixed train
A mixed train or mixed consist is a train that contains both passenger and freight cars or wagons. In some countries, the term refers to a freight train carrying various different types of freight rather a single commodity. Although common in the ...
. By the 1930s, that had been reduced to a weekly goods service, and stayed at that level until the railway closed. There was only one lineside industry, a dairy at
Moyhu, and the majority of stations were nameboards at road crossings.
Whitfield to Wangaratta Rail Heritage Trail
In the 2000s, a Whitfield to Wangaratta Rail Heritage Trail was proposed, which would have followed some of the former railway route, but it never developed beyond an on-road trail which roughly paralleled the route.
See also
*
Narrow gauge lines of the Victorian Railways
References
{{coord, 36, 47, 00, S, 146, 25, 00, E, display=title
Closed regional railway lines in Victoria (state)
2 ft 6 in gauge railways in Australia