The first 'through' train to Sale was part of a huge celebration when it reached that town on April 2, 1879. At Sale there was a triumphal arch built, there were banquets and there were speeches.
There had been a ceremony at Caulfield, too, at what had been the western end of the line, but at Morwell, no longer a 'railhead', the train merely stopped to let down a few passengers and then went on.
One of those passengers was John Irving, the town's first school teacher, who was to open Morwell State School the next day. SS 2136, this became the Commercial Road State School, but that is another story.
Some of the people there that day were back in 1929 to celebrate 50 years of the railway to Morwell, and effectively 50 years since the effective birth of the town. On October 12, 1929 a special "Back To" train ran from Melbourne bringing back many of the area's 'originals'. There were six days of full-on celebrations to celebrate the town's first 50 years, though the point at which the count started could be debated.
I believe that J. Hayes was the station master before the opening but he moved to Moe after only a month or so and W.H Mitchell became the second station master in 1879.
This column has told before the strange story of the Gippsland line being built in five parts, Sale to Morwell (1 June 1877), Oakleigh to Bunyip (1 October 1877), Moe to Morwell (1 December 1877), Bunyip to Moe (1 March 1878) and the suburban connection from Caulfield in April 1979.
These dates are a little misleading because the contractors who built the line were able to get approval to carry passengers on their sections when they were completed to Victorian Railways safety standards. There were passengers using the lines before the official openings.
The strange way of doing things was reflected in the line getting nearly to Orbost in 1916 but not managing to cross the Snowy, or in that fact that it was closed beyond Sale in 1994 but reopened to Bairnsdale in 2004
Morwell thus served as a 'railhead' for two sections of the line as it was being built, and that meant camps of labourers along the way, particularly in the area where the station was to be built. That, in turn, meant butchers and bakers were needed, among other suppliers, and the towns that were to grow up along the line were often given their initial impetus from supplying the needs of the line's builders.
In 1885 the navvies were back, though in smaller numbers, as a line was built south into the Strzeleckis. The more hopeful of people thought it would eventually continue southward to the coast but that was never going to happen. That was the Mirboo line, which did not quite make it into Mirboo.
On April 10, 1885 the line was officially completed as far as Yinnar. Boolarra, at the 19km mark. Is one more example of a town begun by the railwaymen. The line was open to Mirboo North on January 7, 1886, six years after Parliament had approved it. Morwell was the railhead for this line for the time it was being built and then "Morwell Junction".
Declining business meant that passenger services were closed in 1968 and the line was closed down completely in 1974. In its 86 years it had moved thousands of tons of farm produce, timber, etc, down to the Morwell yards to join main line trains, and it had moved thousands of tons of groceries, farm machinery, hay and so forth back up to the small communities in the hills. Heaven alone knows how many people used it over those bright years, to go down to Morwell and then, perhaps on to the brighter lights, or to come up from Morwell. The encroaching open cut coal mine also meant that the line would have to be rerouted – or closed.
Imagine the stories that could be told. Imagine all the goings away, and all the comings-home. The line really did mean ready connection with a much larger world.
Electrification of the line in 1954-56 brought faster, quieter trains to Morwell, and many of those trains were coming to Morwell to be loaded with briquettes to feed the huge demands of industry and the lesser but important needs of home heating.
The electrification was a boon, and it had a local side because the Yallourn-Morwell complex was the source of that electricity. The line was electrified as far as Traralgon, but the overhead wires and their grey stanchions were removed over time, cut back to Warragul in 1987, Bunyip in 1998 and Pakenham in 2001. There is a section at Bunyip where the stanchions and wires remain, and even one of the substations that controlled the flow of power. It was never pretty, but it was a very real part of our past, and vital.
For a time there even suburban trains running to Warragul. One effect of this was to create chaos among suburban rail timetables and Metro drivers still curse when they get behind a V-line or Pacific National freight train on the suburban tracks.
The line to the Yallourn mine left the main line at Herne's Oak rather than Moe or Morwell in 1922, but like the Mirboo North line it ran across coal deposits that were later required, and in 1953 the Yallourn branch was rerouted to Moe. There was an entirely separate rail system carrying coal from Yallourn to the briquetting works. I remember as a child marvelling at those strange electric locomotives where they passed above the Princes Highway towing long lines of heavy wagons. I think that system was operated by the State Electricity Commission rather than by the Victorian Railways.
That Yallourn-Moe VR line was not used after about 1972 or so and was formally closed in 1987.
Morwell has not been a railhead since the Mirboo North line was closed and in strict use of the term was not a railhead since that first through train ran east in 1879 but it has seen a great deal of railway history, leaving aside the SEC line, which we'll visit sometime soon. It saw the first "Gippslander" express run through in 1954, our only named train.
It also saw Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Phillip pass through in 1954, no doubt waving to the crowds that gathered along the line, but in 1956 Prince Phillip came out here for the opening of the Melbourne Olympic Games, and as part of his tour he stopped in Morwell and looked at the industrial powerhouse the whole Morwell/Yallourn complex had become.