Rail Trip: How many train stations is too many?

I has train.

That is, the Victorian Goldfields Railway train. It runs from Castlemaine to Maldon, but only on Wednesdays and Saturdays, so I had to structure my trip around the it.

The plan was... Wednesday morning take a Metlink train into Melbourne City/Southern Cross station, change to a Vline train for the 1.5 hour trip to Castlemaine, get off here for the stream train to Maldon, spend just under 2 hours then, catch steam train back, and another Vline train to Bendigo for the night.

Up until the day, I worried it might not be worth the hassle.



( Photos. Really. )

Train Robberies

To answer my own question, yes there were.

"In 1938 the Mount Isa Mines payroll of 3,000 pounds was stolen by a group of horsemen near Cloncurry."

This robbery is the subject of school holiday activities in Ipswich but beyond that, all I can find is news story that I used for the above quote: Deathbed confession solves 66-year-old robbery case


There's a little paragraph towards the end of this article about a robbery in 1973.

How men toiled and died to save Cairns

"In 1973 the mountain line was the scene of Australia's Great Train Robbery when two masked bandits hijacked a railway payroll. Blocking the line with a rock, the robbers held up the crew and fired several shots into the luggage compartment. Before disappearing with the $7000 payroll, the pair immobilised the train by chaining its wheels to the rails."


Finally, in 1935 Joseph Ryan was tried and acquitted for robbing a mail train.

"At the Quarter Sessions yesterday a witness described the manner in which he alleged the robbery of £10 000 in bank notes from the Canberra mail train four years ago had been planned."

An account of the trial.

This was all through the papers at the time.



(And mp3 player gives me "The Morning of the Frey". LOL No shortage of accounts of coaches being held up though.)