Rosstown Railway
| Rosstown | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Overview | |||
| Type | Melbourne suburban service | ||
| Status | Dismantled. Now parkland or under private ownership | ||
| Connecting lines | Sandringham, Frankston, and Pakenham lines | ||
| Operation | |||
| Commenced | 1875 | ||
| Closed | 1916 | ||
| Number of tracks | Single track, intended to be double | ||
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The Rosstown Railway was a private railway in the south-eastern suburbs of Melbourne, Australia, running between the current railway stations of Elsternwick, on the Sandringham line, and Oakleigh, on the Pakenham line. The line was built in the late 19th century by William Murray Ross, with the intention of transporting sugar beet to his sugar beet mill, and the refined product to the Port of Melbourne. When the mill failed to begin production, the line fell into disrepair without being used, and it was eventually dismantled, with the land being sold.
William Murray Ross was a local entrepreneur and land owner, who was active on the Caulfield Council during the 1860s. He is most often remembered as the man who conceived of the ambitious, and ultimately unsuccessful, Rosstown Project. This consisted of a large-scale sugar beet processing mill, a railway line to serve it, and a residential estate, named after Ross. In 1875, Ross circulated a broadsheet proposal which detailed the project, and began building the mill that same year.
Also in 1875, Ross began to seek government approval for a railway to run to the site of his sugar mill from Elsternwick railway station, which was part of the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company (M&HBUR) system. That proposal was rejected and Ross submitted a new one in 1876, this time with the railway to extend past the mill to Oakleigh, which had no rail connection to Melbourne. At the time, a railway to Gippsland was being planned, and with many interested and influential parties involved, the proposal had been a lengthy political saga.
The new Gippsland line was originally planned to run from Elsternwick to Gippsland, using the existing M&HBUR line from Elsternwick to Melbourne. However, the M&HBUR wanted to charge an exorbitant fee for running rights over its tracks, and so eventually it was decided that the railway to Gippsland would link with a station to be built at Oakleigh. While it might have been beneficial to join the Elsternwick and new Gippsland railways with Ross's cross-suburban line, its difficult negotiations with the M&HBUR made the Victorian government hesitant to allow another private railway, and Ross's scheme did not gain approval.
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