Lilydale line

The Lilydale railway line is a suburban electric railway in Melbourne, Australia. It branches from the Frankston, Pakenham, Sandringham, and Cranbourne lines at Richmond station. It has 21 stations covering both Metcard ticketing Zones.

Description

The Lilydale line runs through Melbourne's eastern suburbs across mostly gentle hills (but with some steeper sections near the end of the line), having few straight or level sections. Earthworks are significant, with deep cuttings at Hawthorn, Camberwell, Heatherdale and near Croydon. Around Glenferrie and Auburn the line has been raised above the surrounding area on an embankment to avoid level crossings of several roads. In fact all but two level crossings have been eliminated between the city and Blackburn, but beyond there numerous level crossing remain, although there are also quite a few bridges over or under roads.

Many of the level crossings are with major roads, leading to traffic bottlenecks. From Blackburn to Heatherdale, there are level crossings with Blackburn Road, Springvale Road, Rooks Road, Mitcham Road and Heatherdale Road, most within 200 metres of the Maroondah Highway. This means that all major north/southbound thoroughfares over a six kilometre distance become very slow during peak hour services, repeatedly being stopped for passing trains, and also for trains waiting at the nearby stations. Furthermore, the bottlenecks are mostly unavoidable, because only one rail bridge exists over this distance, and that is on a residential street.

Infrastructure

From near Richmond, there are four tracks to Burnley where the Glen Waverley line branches off. From Burnley, the line is triplicated to Box Hill then duplicated to Mooroolbark, while the section between Mooroolbark and Lilydale is single track. After Lilydale station is a closed railway line that extends to Healesville.

Automatic block signalling applies throughout the line. The centre track on the three-track section is signalled for bidirectional operation and is used for up trains in the morning and down trains at other times.

Terminating facilities are provided at Burnley (although inconvenient and not normally used), Camberwell, Box Hill, Blackburn, Mitcham, Ringwood, and Mooroolbark as well as Lilydale. Stabling facilities are provided at Burnley (adjacent to the Glen Waverley branch), Camberwell, Ringwood, and Lilydale.

History

The line from Richmond to Hawthorn was opened initially to a temporary terminus at Pic Nic, just short of the Yarra River, in September 1860, and to Hawthorn in April 1861. It was extended to Camberwell in April 1882, then to Lilydale on the first day of December of that year.

Duplication from East Richmond to Hawthorn occurred about a week after the Lilydale extension opened, and two weeks later, the same section was converted to Double Line Block Telegraph safeworking, and the section from Hawthorn to Camberwell had Staff and Ticket working implemented.

In May 1885 Hawthorn to Camberwell was duplicated and converted to Double Line Block Telegraph. Duplication was extended to Box Hill in December 1888.

Automatic signalling was introduced from December 1907 with the conversion of the section from East Richmond to Hawthorn to semi-automatic signalling, followed by Richmond to East Richmond being converted to automatic signalling in August 1919, East Richmond to Camberwell in two stages both in October 1922, and Camberwell to Canterbury the following month.

Electrification took place between Flinders Street and Box Hill in December 1922, and extended to Ringwood the following month, then Croydon in November 1925 and finally to Lilydale in October 1925.

Conversion to automatic signalling resumed in April 1927 with the conversion of Canterbury to Surrey Hills, followed by Surrey Hills to Box Hill in October 1929.

The section from Croydon to Mooroolbark was duplicated in 1957, creating a long crossing loop on this otherwise single-line section beyond Ringwood.

Automatic signalling conversions resumed in July 1958 with the section from Box Hill to Blackburn, followed by Mitcham to Ringwood in September of that year, and Blackburn to Mitcham in November 1960.

Hawthorn to Camberwell was triplicated in December 1963, and the triplication was extended to East Camberwell in November 1964. Richmond to Burnley was quadruplicated in 1966/67, and triplication was extended to Box Hill in December 1971, followed by Burnley to Hawthorn in August 1972. This left a short section of double track on the up side of Richmond, but this was quadruplicated with the construction of a flyover in 1973.

Ringwood to Croydon was converted to automatic signalling in November 1973 and duplicated in June 1984. Mooroolbark to Lilydale was converted to automatic signalling in June 1985.

List of stations

Bold stations are terminuses, italic stations are staffed.

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Proposals for a station between Mooroolbark and Lilydale, near the intersection of Hull and Mooroolbark Roads, appear to have stalled.

External links, maps, and timetables

• Timetables
• Official line map
• Statistics and detailed schematic map at the VicSig enthusiast website