By Peter Dunn, Upper Yarra Valley Historical Society
Today we can catch a clean, quiet and efficient electric train to Melbourne.
It saves us from the drudgery of driving in traffic and the hassle of finding somewhere to park when we get to our destination.
But what did the coming of the railway mean to the people of the Yarra Valley?
The railway reached Lilydale in 1882, but for the people of the Yarra Valley this still meant a trip of some hours over rough and unsealed roads by horse and cart just to get to the railway station.
Farmers, fruit growers and timber men were faced with impractical costs and efforts to get their produce to the railhead.
After much local agitation, the railway to Healesville was completed in 1889.
However the plans for a line to Warburton were postponed due to the economic depression of the 1890s.
To ease costs, plans were put forward to construct the line in narrow gauge as was the Belgrave to Gembrook (Puffing Billy) line.
However as the economic situation improved, this plan was pushed aside as being unnecessary due to the open nature of the valley.
The line was finally built in 1901.
To the residents and businesses of the Yarra Valley, the railway was a godsend.
Now people could travel to Lilydale and beyond in comfort and with vast savings in time.
The fruit growers from Wandin and Seville could get their produce into Melbourne before they spoiled and the timber men had a viable means of getting their timber to market.
This led to an explosion of the timber industry, with mills and tramways running from the forest down to the various railheads.
These tramways varied from simple horse-drawn affairs running on wooden rails to more elaborate steel-railed tramways like the Powelltown tramway.
But there were other benefits as well.
It was easier for farmers to order in their equipment and fertilisers.
Tourists from Melbourne discovered the delights of the Yarra Valley which led to a blossoming of the guesthouse industry and later, with the building of the Sanitarium factory in Warburton, wheat was railed in and van loads of Weet-Bix and other products where railed out.
The line was successful until the mid-50s when road transport began to seriously compete with the railway.
We lost most of the timber tramways in the 1939 fires and these were generally not rebuilt.
Despite the calls of ‘use it or lose it’ the Warburton line closed in 1965.
The Healesville line lingered on until 1980 before it, too, was closed.
Today the Healesville line is being rebuilt as a tourist railway by the Yarra Valley Railway.
The Warburton line is now a well-used rail trail.
The old tramlines can in some cases still be walked such as the Walk into History, from Powelltown up to Starlings Gap and down to Big Pats Creek, and the Richardsons Zig Zag, also at Big Pats Creek.
