Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company

The Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company was a railway company in Victoria, Australia. The company was founded on 20 January 1853 to build the line from Melbourne to the port of Sandridge (now Port Melbourne). It was constructed to the 'Irish' broad gauge of 1,600 mm (5 ft 3 in), as the result of an agreement between the then-colonies in Australia to adopt that gauge. This was the first common-carrier railway to operate in Australia. It opened on 12 September 1854, more than a year before the Sydney–Parramatta Railway in NSW, which opened on 26 September 1855.

The first engineer for the line was William Snell Chauncy, but he was forced to resign in 1845 due to problems with his work, such as the failure of piles on the railway pier. James Moore C. E., a nephew of Sir William Cubitt (under whom he was engaged on the South Eastern and Great Northern railways in Britain and presumable learnt his trade there) was then appointed in March 1854 as Chief Engineer for the Hobson's Bay Railway company. It was said of Moore that he was a man of whose abilities rumour speaks favourably and was responsible for designing the railway line between the city and the pier main deep-water pier on Hobson's Bay at Sandridge.

Work began on laying the railway in March 1853. Trains were ordered from Robert Stephenson and Company of the United Kingdom, but the first train was hauled by a 2-2-2WT locomotive built by local engineering works Robertson, Martin & Smith, because of shipping delays. Australia's first steam locomotive was built in ten weeks and cost £2,700. The line was opened in September 1854 (three years after the discovery of gold at Ballarat) and ran for 4 kilometres (2.5 miles) from the Melbourne (or City) Terminus (on the site of modern-day Flinders Street Station), crossing the Yarra River on the original Sandridge Bridge to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne).

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