User:Triptothecottage/Girgarre railway line

The Girgarre railway line was a short branch line in the north-east district of the Victorian rail network.

Origins
The severe depression of the 1890s resulted in significant depopulation of northern Victoria as farms became unviable and their owners moved toward the coast and the city. The exodus continued into the twentieth century and, moreover, the population of Victoria itself began to decline. The solution enacted by the Victorian Parliament in 1904 was a program of subdivision and irrigation of prime agricultural districts, encouraging "closer settlement" on small farms that would deliver produce to designated markets. The Lands Purchase and Management Board selected the Goulburn Valley for a second tranche of riverine development, and in 1913 acquired the Stanhope Estate north of Rushworth for subdivision into primarily dairy farms of around 60 acres. Such schemes found support with railway authorities, who saw them as an opportunity to capture new traffic on marginal lines constructed during the speculative 1880s boom, and restore some at least to long-term profitability.

Two routes were investigated by the Railway Standing Committee for connecting the Stanhope development to the railway system: a line west from Byrneside on the Toolamba–Echuca line, or north from Rushworth. The Rushworth route was shorter, but landholders in Girgarre and Rochester, alarmed at the possibility of being left between the two lines, had argued that the Byrneside route was more straightforward from a civil engineering point of view, and, furthermore, that it would "...fairly serve the whole parish." With the extension of the line from Rushworth to Colbinabbin underway, commercial interests in Rushworth persuaded railway advocates in Rochester and Bamawm to join their campaign, with the object of the line eventually becoming a second cross-country route between the Goulburn Valley and Echuca mainlines. Likewise, promoters of the Byrneside route proposed a continuation of their route to Elmore on the Echuca line, following an existing road alignment.

The Standing Committee announced it would recommend the Rushworth route in July 1914, primarily on the basis that it offered the shortest route by rail for produce from the district to markets in Melbourne and Sydney. Almost immediately, however, landholders in Timmering, to the north of Stanhope, began to advocate for the first stage of the line to be extended slightly. Another year of deliberations by the Committee followed, by which time the State Rivers and Water Supply Commission had announced its intention to settle the northern part of Stanhope more densely than the southern part originally enivisioned as the railway terminus. Thus, in July 1915, the Committee's second report recommended an additional 3 mi extension of the route. A construction bill passed the Parliament that month, but the start of construction and its subsequent progress was severely delayed by wartime economic conditions.

The line officially opened on 15 May 1917 with a handful of local dignitaries aboard the first service; poor weather led to the abandonment of more elaborate ceremonies. There were two stations: Stanhope, at the line's originally proposed terminus; and Girgarre, at the northern end, although some locals felt the latter name was "confusing". Debate about an alternative name continued for over a year, but in the end no agreement could be reached.