TheMelbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company was a railway company inVictoria, Australia. The company was incorporated on 20 January 1853 to build theline from Melbourne to the port of Sandridge, nowPort Melbourne.

The proposal met considerable opposition, despite the inadequacy and high costs of using horse drays and bullock wagons to carry merchandise from the port to the city. However, the combination of chaotic transport conditions and the extravagant financial prosperity that followed the gold rush led the community to realise the urgent need for railway communication on various routes, of which this one was prominent. The colony's pastoral somnolence was interrupted, never to recur, and a "railway boom" set in.^[1]: 1

The line was constructed to1600 mm (5 ft 3 in) "broad gauge" in keeping with an agreement among Victoria,New South Wales andSouth Australia to adopt that gauge – subsequently abandoned by the government of New South Wales.^[1]: 62

The first engineer for the line wasWilliam 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 SirWilliam Cubitt (under whom he was engaged on theSouth Eastern andGreat Northern railways in Britain; presumably he had 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 manof whose abilities rumour speaks favourably^[2] and was responsible for designing the railway line between the city and the pier main deep-water pier onHobson's Bay atSandridge.

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 a2-2-2WT locomotive built by local engineering worksRobertson, Martin & Smith, because of shipping delays. Australia's first steam locomotive was built in ten weeks and cost£2,700.^[3][4] The line was opened in September 1854 (three years after the discovery of gold at Ballarat) and ran for 4.2 kilometres (2.6 miles) from theMelbourne (or City) Terminus (on the site of modern-dayFlinders Street station), crossing theYarra River on the originalSandridge Bridge to Sandridge (nowPort Melbourne).^[5]

The opening of the line occurred during the period of theVictorian gold rush – a time when both Melbourne and Victoria undertook massive capital works, each with its owngala opening. The inaugural journey on the Sandridge line was no exception. According to theArgus newspaper's report of the next day: "Long before the hour appointed ... a great crowd assembled round the station at the Melbourne terminus, lining the whole ofFlinders Street".Lieutenant-GovernorSir Charles Hotham and Lady Hotham were aboard the train – which consisted of twofirst class carriages and one second class – and were presented withsatin copies of the railway'stimetable andbylaws.^[6]

The trip took 10 minutes, none of the later stations along the line having been built. On arriving atStation Pier (onto which the tracks extended), it was hailed with gun-salutes by the warshipsHMS Electra andHMS Fantome.^[7]

By March 1855, the four engines ordered from the UK were all in service, with trains running every half-hour. They were namedMelbourne,Sandridge,Victoria, andYarra (after theYarra River over which the line crossed).

Despite high construction costs, the railway was an immediate success, carrying 270,000 passengers and 28,135 tons of goods in its first full year of operations.^[8]

In 1857, the Company opened a 4.8 km (3.0 mi) line from the present-dayFlinders Street station toSt Kilda to meet up with the St Kilda toBrighton line being built by theSt Kilda and Brighton Railway Company. The name ofWilliam Elsdon, the Engineer in Chief, who designed the line, is engraved into the parapet of the bridge at Park Street.^[9]

Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company absorbed the two other remaining suburban railway companies in 1865: theSt Kilda and Brighton Railway Company and theMelbourne and Suburban Railway Company. The combined company was incorporated as the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company. In turn it was sold, for £1,320,820,^[1] to theGovernment of Victoria in 1878 to become part ofVictorian Railways.^[10] Both lines became part of theMelbourne suburban electrified network during the 20th century.

During the company's 13 years' existence, the average annual dividend of 71⁄2 per cent on working operations had resulted, equal to a return of nearly £49 on each £50 share.^[1]

Most parts of the two lines were converted tostandard gaugelight rail in 1987 astram routes 96 and109.

• Trove List:-Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company
• Trove List:-Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company

• Defunct railway companies of Australia
• History of Melbourne
• Railway companies established in 1853
• Railway companies disestablished in 1878
• Rail transport in Melbourne

• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from August 2021
• Use Australian English from August 2022
• All Wikipedia articles written in Australian English