Portal:Trains/Selected article/Week 27, 2007

The Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra railway line (popularly known as the Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line) is a commuter railway line in the eastern and southern suburbs of Sydney, Australia, that is part of Sydney's CityRail rail network. Along with the South Coast Line, an intercity line that uses the Illawara Line tracks out of Sydney, the line was constructed in the 1880s to Wollongong to take advantage of agricultural and mining potentials in the Illawarra area. In 1926, it became the first railway in New South Wales to run electric train services. As of 2007 the railway consists of three connected lines: the original Illawarra Line; a branch line from Sutherland to Cronulla (the Cronulla Line), which opened on a former tramway alignment in 1939; and an underground rail link between the Sydney CBD and Bondi Junction, the Eastern Suburbs Line, which opened in 1979.