Melbourne–Adelaide railway

Melbourne–Adelaide railway

Locale	Victoria and South Australia
Predecessor	Victorian Railways and South Australian Railways
Track gauge	1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in) standard gauge
Previous gauge	converted from 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in)

Melbourne-Adelaide railway
Melbourne Melbourne–Sydney railway Western SG line Vic–SA border Adelaide–Wolseley railway Adelaide to Crystal Brook and the East–West and Adelaide–Darwin railways

The Melbourne–Adelaide railway is a standard gauge railway corridor that runs between the cities of Melbourne, Victoria and Adelaide, South Australia. Most of the current traffic is freight, though the only named and perhaps best known regular train is the twice-weekly passenger service The Overland, operated by Great Southern Railways

In the second half of the nineteenth century, the Victorian Railways and South Australian Railways broad gauge networks were extended. The South Australian main line, the Adelaide-Wolseley line, was connected to the Victorian system at Serviceton in 1887. This was the first single gauge inter-colonial link in Australia.

In 1995, the line was converted to standard gauge, under the One Nation program and rerouted between Melbourne and Ararat in Victoria, to run on the line via North Shore and Cressy.

Calls for a standard gauge line between Melbourne and Adelaide were made as early as 1983, with studies between VicRail and Australian National at the time suggesting figures of around $400 million to construct, and various routes, including via Serviceton and Ararat, or via Pinnaroo, Ouyen and Maryborough.

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