A little over one hundred years ago, Australia’s first electrified suburban railways commenced operations. Melbourne led the way when electric trains ran between Essendon and Sandringham on 28 May 1919.

Alex Wardrop talks about his book, Melbourne’s Great Metropolitan Railways, which celebrates the birth and development of Melbourne’s electric railways from the Federation of Australia into the new Millennium, through good times and bad, with a nod across the border and elsewhere. It tells how railway electrification was the nation building enterprise of the early 20th Century. It shows how these railways became Melbourne’s public transport backbone.

Introduced by PMI Chief Librarian Lauren Joffe


Talk was held on the 28th of February and live streamed on YouTube and is available through the link below:
Melbourne’s Great Metropolitan Railwayss