Puffing Billy Railway in Victoria,
Australia.
(Review by A. Parker)
Puffing Billy Railway is situated about 26 miles outside
Melbourne in the Dandenong hills. It starts at Belgrave and winds
its way to Gembrook, a distance of about 18 miles.
The railway was originally used as a tool to try and
connect up some of the remote settlements in the area; however, after a
landslide in 1953, the line was closed, as it had become un-economic to
operate.
It was opened up again with the formation of the Puffing
Billy Preservation society in 1962; however, only as far as Menzies
Creek. The section to Emerald was opened in 1965 and to Lakeside
in 1975. The final section to Gembrook was opened in 1998.
I visited the railway in November 2002 on Melbourne Cup
day thinking that the railway would be fairly quiet. Wrong!
the railway was extremely busy, as can be seen in the Panoramas that you
can see below. Puffing Billy is a major attraction in the
Melbourne area, just as Mull Railway is on our island. The scale
of the operation is obviously different; however, the overall feel is
very similar. If you look at the style of the two railways they
are clearly similar, and of course the locos are of the same pattern.
Victoria of Mull Rail is a scaled down version of the Puffing Billy
Locos.
To get to Puffing Billy, I found the best way was to
travel from Melbourne on the train. Not only because I am a bit of
an 'Anorak' but also because its quick, comfortable, not too expensive,
and the railway stops at the place where Puffing Billy starts. The
only problem is that you really do have to start your journey fairly
early in the day so as to catch the first train going all the way to
Gembrook. On the return, you can stop off and have a look around
some of the small towns and stations. We found Emerald a good
place to stop off and eat and Lakeside a good place to have a walk.
If you are going anywhere near Melbourne then Puffing
Billy is a must !
Below are the 360 degree images that I took on my visit.
Unfortunately I missed the only train of the day to Gembrook, so the
final image is of Lakeside Station. Anyway, I'll just have to
visit again to complete the set. 'No worries' as they say in
Australia.
Click on the images below to
view a Panoramic 360 degree image
The first image will take about 25
seconds to download on a 56k modem
The following images will be
quicker.
A really nice feature on the Puffing Billy site is a recording of
their whistle sound.
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