Eltham Rail Trestle Bridge, Eltham, Vic

The timber trestle rail bridge at Eltham carries the single broad gauge track of suburban Melbourne's Hurstbridge line through the Alistair Knox Park river-valley. Mainly of timber-pier and timber-beam construction, but varied by a few longer steel-joists spans on timber piers at the main stream channel, this substantial bridge has almost two hundred metres of timber deck. It is the only railway bridge of predominantly timber construction that is still in regular use as an integral part of Melbourne's metropolitan electric railway network and one of extremely few timber rail bridges in the State that still carry trains.



When built in 1902 it was close to the terminus point of the Heidelberg-Eltham rail extension, on the route of the proposed Diamond Valley Railway that was then planned to continue much further up the valley towards Kinglake. This bridge is situated in attractive river-valley parkland amidst the tall and spreading manna gums and candlebarks of the Diamond Creek Valley. The river-valley landscape, of which the timber trestle bridge is an important visual component, has been classified by the National Trust. Large manna gum and candlebark trees adorn the adjacent creek banks, and historic Shillinglaw Cottage is also part of this much-prized Eltham landscape. This section of the Diamond Creek Valley was the subject of a Walter Withers painting in the earliest years of the twentieth century and has strong historic links with our Heidelberg School of painters.