A complex task of a railway

The building of the Gippsland railway was a massive task, but it was achieved (on time and on budget - mostly). That gave Gippsland a safe, fast and cheap way to export heavy loads, like timber and coal, and loads that had to move fast, like fish and milk.
It brought in people, and took others away. It brought same-day newspapers, and it made the growth of Gippsland faster and easier. By 1910 it provided a better life for small towns miles into the hills on either side of the main line.
That system of branch lines extended to Heyfield and Maffra (1883-1886) Mirboo (1885), Thorpdale (1888), Briagolong (1889), Neerim South (1890), Port Albert (1891), Walhalla (narrow gauge,1910), Wonthaggi (1910), Noojee (1919), Strzelecki (1922), Woodside (1923) and Yallourn (a spur line,1924). The line into South Gippsland left the Gippsland line at Dandenong.
There also were a few short spurs run to various commercial operations and quite a number of sidings along the line, built to allow loading and unloading.
It reached Sale in 1878, Bairnsdale in 1897 and the west bank of the Snowy at Orbost, which was the end of the line, in 1916. Ironically, it was not connected to the 'big smoke' until 1879. It was possible to travel from Sale to Oakleigh in about five hours (a coach could take 40 hours at times, and never less than 28 hours or so. However, at Oakleigh other arrangements had to be made, for nearly a year.
An 1874 Act approved the building of the main line, but there were arguments over the route in from Oakleigh, so it was decided to start at Oakleigh and head east and to start simultaneously at Sale and head west, a decision that seems a little strange now. Perhaps it was way to get the line faster.
In 1875 Neil McNeil won the contract for the Oakleigh-Bunyip section but it passed to James Leggatt. He had his section ready for use by October 1, 1877. For a time Bunyip was a busy railhead. Rail travellers still faced a tough trip, including the Haunted Hills, between Bunyip and Morwell.
Messrs Millar and James got the contract to build westward from Sale to Morwell. They did have a small problem in that there was no rail access to their allotted route, so they had to being in two work locomotives by sea, unloading them at the La Trobe wharf. The 'St Kilda' was brought from the wharf to Sale by bullock drays, with the locomotive stripped to reduce weight and the wheels and so forth were loaded onto another dray.
Their second loco, the 'Rosedale' was brought up from the wharf under its own steam, with short lengths of track leapfrogging each other until Sale was reached.
When the South Gippsland line was being built another contractor's locomotive was brought in by sea, to a specially-built landing stage near Toora. Those contractors seemed to be afraid of nothing.
The Sale to Morwell section was 62 kilometres, over fairly easy country. It was ready to use by June 1, 1877.
The Noonan brothers won the contract to close 'The Gap' as it was known, and this short distance involved many cuttings and embankment. They tackled it in two stages. Morwell back to Moe was opened by December 1, 1877. It took a little longer to link Moe and Bunyip, largely because of the difficulty in getting a firm footing for the bridge over the Bunyip – that was still a problem when most of the line was later duplicated.
There also were several sizable cuttings and embankments in this section and for a time the railway camp at Rock Cutting took on a fairly permanent air, even with its own government school. It is hard to pin down the actual location of Rock Cutting, but it was on the higher ground between Drouin and Longwarry, east of the Longwarry Bank.
The grand opening, and it really was a rather grand affair, took place on March 7, 1878. A special train waited at Oakleigh for a full 300 VIPs and steamed away from the Oakleigh platform at 8am.
There were then five hours of passing through what was still largely forested country and arrival at Sale at 1pm. Here there was great rejoicing, with cheering crowds, the firing of a salute, and then a monster 'dejeuner' for the VIPs and the more important locals.
Before this grand opening of the line the various sections were already carrying a few passengers. The construction contracts allowed the contractors to carry paying passengers once each section was completed.
The line was extended to Bairnsdale in 1897 and to Orbost in 1916. That made seven separate sections in all, if one adds on the connection between Oakleigh and South Yarra in 1879. In all the great railway madness this country has seen and endured, the idea of building the line in what were effectively five separate contracts would have few parallels. Still, it worked.
Railways were the breath of life to many places in Gippsland, making everything from growing spuds to splitting paling to digging coal to shipping out cream and many other things, possible. They were to be overtaken in the 20th century by motor transport.
We recognise that roads and trucks were improving all the time but the railways also had the fatal fault of being inflexible, Goods had to be shifted to the railway stations and then shifted away again at their destination, except in the few cases where special sidings were built for factories, quarries and mills close to the line.
This meant loading things onto a truck, shifting the load to a railway truck and then shifting it back onto and then off a truck at the other end. With motor trucks goods were loaded once and unloaded once.
The line those men hacked a railway route out of the bush, building bridge and culverts, digging cuttings with horses and carts, picks, shovels and wheelbarrows, removing trees, including their routes, then laying down stone ballast, heaving sleepers into place, manhandling the rails into place and hammering home the dogspikes to hold the rails securely, were among the heroes of Gippsland's past,
It would have been interesting to watch their faces as the Gippslander thundered through, or as a 70-wagon load of briquettes ran past. We are still reaping the benefits of their labour.