Freight Railways in Melbourne - Former Services

Former Services

In the late 1920s the Victorian Railways introduced their fleet of E class electric locomotives which operated throughout Melbourne for the next 60 years, trains operating during the off-peak and at night. As late as the 1970s, most suburban railway stations had goods yards for general freight, as well as the local distribution of huge quantities of brown coal briquettes and firewood, which were the principal forms of industrial and domestic heating. Briquette traffic peaked in 1960/61 when 1.7 million tons were moved within Victoria, second only to the wheat harvest in volume.

There were also a large number of sidings that directly served factories and other industrial facilities. With the rise of efficient door to door road transport, suburban rail freight operations ceased in the late 1980s. The majority of goods yards have since been removed and the land used for car parking, or converted to stabling locations for suburban trains.

Suburban stations with goods yards or sidings included:

• Dandenong
• Broadmeadows
• Newport
• Werribee
• Sunshine
• Broadmeadows
• Eltham
• Heidelberg
• General Motors
• Williamstown
• Laverton
• Newmarket
• Yarraville
• Spotswood, Sand trains to AGM Siding near Nyora
• Port Melbourne

In recent years attempt have been made to run shuttles between the Port of Melbourne and inland ports. Between 2003 and 2006 CRT Group operated a shuttle to their terminal at Altona, 22 kilometers from the docks. In 2004/05, the service transported 13,000 TEU, this being 42 per cent capacity for import and 58 per cent for export containers. The service ceased due to high access fees charged by track operator ARTC, and delays by interstate freight trains sharing the same track making the reliable operation of two trips per day impossible. The service restarted in 2005, but failed for the same reasons. A second port shuttle has operated to the Austrack terminal at Somerton during various periods since 1998, with difficulties faced including inefficient track layouts, high rail transfer charges at the port, and inconvenient timetables dictated by long distance freight services.