Many striking bridges east of Sale

Travelling east from Sale along the Gippsland line last week we got as far as Nicholson, one of the nicest little places in Gippsland. We can't do this trip by train now, but the line stays close to the road most of the time, and the track itself forms the Gippsland Rail Trail for walkers and bike riders.
The line from Bairnsdale to Orbost was built in 1916, and it features many striking bridges as the coastal flats narrow and the hills come down to the sea.
Many of the stations opened in 1916 were closed in 1935, particularly among the stations east of Bairnsdale. Colquhoun, Bumberrah, Bruthen, Waygara, Nicholson, Nowa Nowa and Orbost were all closed in that year. Sometimes the dollars are more important than the service and, anyway, busses are more flexible, and cheaper. The problem with that is that busses were few and far between in that part of the world in 1935. Usually the stations maintained a freight service after being 'closed' to passenger traffic.

There were stations at Munro and Fernbank, Lindenow and Hillside between Sale and Bairnsdale and then Bumberrah, Claybank and Nicholson, at Mossiface and Bruthen, at Colquhoun and then Nowa Nowa, home to about half the world's mosquitoes. Next was Tostaree, and the mysterious Partelli, followed by Waygara and then Orbost, nine miles away. That Orbost station was at the end of a long trestle that crossed the flat Snowy flood plain and then stopped just short of the Snowy itself.
The Orbost line closed in 1987 but passenger services ended long before that. The line was important for freight, though. There were sawmills close to some of the stations and a surprising number of farms sending out produce.
We looked very briefly at Nicholson last week so we'll start with Bumberrah, 183 miles out from Melbourne. Opened with the line in 1916 it closed in 1935. The name is obviously aboriginal but I've never been able to find the meaning.

Mossiface station 194 is next as the line swings northward following the original 1890 survey. The line got here in 1913 but officially opened in 1916. An engineering report says the first sod for the line was turned January 9, 1912. There is a photo of a survey team camped at Mossiface in 1907. The site looks out over the Tambo River flats, over the years producing all manner of things, including maize and hops.

Finally, with all problems solved, both engineering and political, the first sod was turned at Mossiface on 9.1.1912, the government sticking to the original route in the 1890 survey though teams of surveyors worked the route in more detail. Mossiface had a wharf and a turning basin for ships.
Bruthen, the next station on the line, was only three miles further on and was the biggest town to lose its rail services in 1935. The others were Bumberrah, Claybank, Colquhoun, Mossiface, Nicholson, Tostaree, Nowa Nowa, Orbost and Waygara.

As with Mossiface, there were occasions when small Lakes steamers came up as far as Bruthen, though that seems impossible now, given the size of the Tambo River here. The town was also a communications centre, on the track that became the Alpine Road and also offering road and rail to the west and the east. It was also a significant producer of agricultural products
Kilmorie Station (no, not a railway station) was taken up by Matthew and Thomas Macalister in about 1845 and included the Bruthen area. The settlement itself was on the Tambo Valley track from Omeo down to the Lakes, and this became very important when droving cattle to Melbourne or down to Lakes ports or Port Albert.

Colquhoun Railway Station, at the 199-mile peg, was opened on Monday April 10, 1916. It was closed in 1935, the last train passing the site in 1987.The closing of a station is just that; the line itself remained in operation. It did have the distinction, at 423 feet above sea level, of being the highest station on the line.
About six miles further on the line crossed Stony Creek on a trestle bridge that is truly spectacular. It is 905 feet long and 62 feet high. As with so many of these it has fallen into some disrepair, but in looking at it one cannot help thinking of the skill in standing so many logs up and across and having them line up true and level. Just the bringing on-site of so much timber was a Herculean task.
The next station was Nowa Nowa, at the head of Lake Tyers, opened in 1916 and closed in 1935. It would have handled large volumes of sawn timber, back in the day, with pigs, cattle and farm produce being exported. The station even had a refreshment room. It had a substantial goods shed (we always talk about what went out but there was a stream of goods coming in as well) and one of those white-painted railway cranes of four poles. I remember one at Longwarry.

There is not much to say about Tostaree, about six miles further on, over a steep climb, and then Waygara, eight miles more. Both were opened with the line, in 1916, and closed in the 'purge' of 1935. They served and were important to small communities but they did not generate enough traffic to survive. Between the two, though, was a station called Partelli, between Hospital and Wombat Creeks, where Partelli's Crossing Road comes down to the Highway.
Partelli opened in 1926, became Rail Motor Stopping Place 22 in 1928 and was closed in 1931. There were families in Victoria called Partelli, but I cannot find the connection. It does not even appear in Victorian Railways Grades Guide for 1917.

Newmerella did not have a station and I wondered why. By 1916, when the line reached it there would have been some sawmilling, surely. The last leg from Nowa Nowa was a long 22 miles to the west bank of the Snowy at Orbost. Winding in and out of the hills, at a maximum speed of 25 miles an hour, with little to see but the bush must have meant a lift in of one's spirits when the train reached the open countryside, close to the end of the journey.

It seems that the Orbost station was also called Newmerella East, or just Newmerella, on the west bank of the Snowy opposite Orbost. There was not enough traffic to justify the cost of a bridge, though Orbost had a butter factory from 1892 and was sending cargoes out through Marlo. Newmerella developed about the time the line was built' It seems to have started as a 'tent city' for navvies and it was a close market for farmers on the Snowy Flats. Yet there was a Newmerella school opened in 1889, moving to the present site in 1924.
The trestle across the flats is worth a story in itself, when I finish researching it, and it is, thankfully, being preserved.