Non-Fiction
Book Details

The Railways of Victoria 1854-2004

150th Anniversary

Robert Lee

Victoria was the first Australian colony to open a steam railway, in 1854, and for the rest of the nineteenth century it remained the continent’s most advanced and intensive railway.

About this Title

Victoria was the first Australian colony to open a steam railway, in 1854, and for the rest of the nineteenth century it remained the continent’s most advanced and intensive railway. Melbourne was Australia’s first city to have suburban railways, which were also the first to be electrified, beginning in 1919.

This book tells the story of the early railways opened in the wake of the gold rushed to Ballarat and Bendigo, extravagantly engineered as none ever would be in the future. It then moves on to examine the role of railways in the development of the colony during the nineteenth century, when railway policy often dominated political discourse. Railway history both reflected and made Victorian history as a whole, especially during the boom and bust of the 1880s and 1890s.

During the Clapp era of the 1920s and 1930s Victorial Railways projected an aura of sophiscated and style, whereas after World War II there was constant challenge and readjustment, as other transport modes became dominant. This culminated in a long crisis through the last decades of the twentieth century, of which emerged a railway system radically restructured in almost every way.

The colourful characters, political intrigues and enormous social impact of Victoria’s railways, as well as their constantly changing and fascinating technology, are major themes of this book.

About the Author

Robert Lee was born in 1952 and educated at Macquarie and Sydney Universities in Sydney. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Western Sydney where he has taught history since 1979. He has published three major books: France and the Exploitation of China, 1885-1901 (1990); The Greatest Public Work (1988); and Colonial Engineer: John Whitton (1819-1898) and the Building of Australia's Railways (2000).

His research has concentrated on the late nineteenth and early twentieth century in the Asia-Pacific region, much of it, but not all, concerned transport history and technology transfer. Dr Lee has undertaken two missions for UNESCO to assess mountain railways in India as World Heritage Sites. He has also done a study of significant sites in Australia's transport and communications history for the Australian Heritage Commission.

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978-0-522-85699-6