With the arrival of railways as a mode of transport, it was inevitable that they would meet and cross the existing road network, and the easiest and cheapest method of allowing the passage of trains and road vehicles at such meeting places was the level crossing. Today, there are around 23,000 level crossings in Australia.
Trains have a much larger mass relative to their braking capability, and thus a far longer braking distance than road vehicles. With rare exceptions, trains do not stop at level crossings and rely on vehicles and pedestrians to clear the tracks in advance.
Bridge Street north level crossing, Port Melbourne, 1974
Level crossings constitute a significant safety concern internationally. Collisions can occur with vehicles as well as pedestrians; pedestrian collisions are more likely to result in a fatality. At railway stations, a pedestrian level crossing is sometimes provided to allow passengers to reach other platforms in the absence of an underpass or bridge, or for disabled access. Among pedestrians, young people (5–19 years), older people (60 years and over), and males are considered to be higher risk users.
In the 19th century and for much of the 20th, a sign warning "Stop, look, and listen" (or similar wording) was the sole protection at most level crossings. Today, active protection is widely available, and fewer collisions take place at level crossings with active warning systems
21% of level crossings are ‘active’, that is, the have boom gates and/or flashing lights to alert you when a train is coming.
79% of level crossings are ‘passive’, meaning most have either a ‘Stop’ or ‘Give Way’ sign, so you must check for trains yourself. These also include crossings on private land.
As a general rule, the flatter the terrain the more level crossings have been built. In the case of Sydney, where much of the terrain is hilly or undulating, embankments and cuttings had to be built to ensure the railway tracks stayed relatively level. These embankments and cuttings proved to be ideal locations for bridges to take roads over or under the railway lines. Cuttings were also perfect locations for railway stations (see photo below). As a result, Sydney ended up with far fewer level crossings than places like Melbourne, Perth and Adelaide where the terrain was generally flat.
The suburban station of Epping, built in a cutting on Sydney's Northern Line
Some subways and bridges were built for the passage of road traffic under or over a railway line in these places, but the expense of their construction meant that few were built, and were limited to high traffic locations such as Perth's Mt Lawley subway (built because the railway and tram lines crossed paths here, see photo below), and the railway bridge over the Princes Highway to the south of Malvern station in suburban Melbourne. By the 1970s, Melbourne's transport network ended up including approximately 180 road/rail level crossings.
Mt Lawley subway, Perth, WA. Photo: City of Stirling Libraries Local Studies Collection. The subway was created utilising a combination of a railway embankment and the excavation of soil below the existing ground level.
The arrival of motor vehicles in Australia a century ago led to a massive increase in both road and rail traffic, resulting in level crossings becoming dangerous bottlenecks. To reduce the danger of collisions, lights and bells were often installed to warn motorists and pedestrians that a train was approaching. These proved to be totally inadequate in built up areas, and so gates were erected on level crossings that had to be opened and closed by traffic wardens. Over time, the operation of many such the gates became mechanised and with the advent of boom gates, many were removed altogether and replaced by boom gates.
Above: Lydiard Street North level crossing gates in Ballarat, Victoria. The gates have since been removed and replaced by boom gates after a train crashed into the gates
Whilst gates certainly made level crossings safer, in the suburbs and inner city areas of places like Melbourne, gates did nothing to relieve the traffic congestion on major thoroughfares. Town planners and traffic administrators across the country were left with no option but to consider the daunting and expensive task of removing and replacing level crossings altogether in built up areas to ensure a safer and continuous flow of road traffic in the future.
Several Australian State Governments presently have significant level crossing removal programs in place. These either close the level crossing or replace it with a bridge or tunnel for trains or vehicles to use. The Australian Government Regional Australia Level Crossing Safety Program included $160 million from 2023-24 – 2026-27 to support lower cost, higher priority level crossing upgrades.
When Melbourne's rail network was built, many road-railway crossings were via level crossing rather than bridges or underpasses due to the city's flat topography and sparse population. As traffic levels increased, these became bottlenecks for road and rail traffic, limiting the speed and frequency of train services. In 1954, the State Government established a committee to look at the removal of level crossings at Clifton Hill, Elsternwick, Footscray, Moorabbin, and Newport. These projects were completed by 1960.
In 1983, the level crossing at Station Street, Box Hill, was removed. Other level crossing removals include Dorset Road, Boronia, in 1998 and Middleborough Road, Laburnum, in 2007. In the early 2010s, level crossings were removed at Nunawading (2010), Springvale (2014), Sunshine (2014) and Mitcham (2014).
The Victorian Government presently uses one of two methods to replace level crossings:
a. lower the railway line into a trench (see North Williamstown station video above). Bridges are then built to take roads across the line.
b. raise the railway line onto piers, usually on section of track which is crossed by a number of busy roads (see Noble Park railway station video below).
Both options involve the raising or lowering of the line within its existing corridor, ensuring the land surrounding the crossing does not need to be changed or modified, and traffic flow is not affected by the crossing of the railway as the the road remains at ground level.
As of 2014, there were 170 level crossings left on Melbourne's rail network and 228 places where railways had been separated from roads; by the end of the Level Crossing Removal Project (LXRP), less than 60 level crossings will remain. Over two-thirds of these grade separations were constructed between 1863 and 1918, with fewer than one level crossing removal per year between 1918 and 2015. The commitment by the government to remove 110 level crossings over sixteen years, by 2030, represents the fastest rate of crossing removals in Melbourne's history.
Above: this video features footage of the last four locations in Melbourne where an electric tramway crosses an electric railway line at a level crossing. The crossing at Gardiner was removed in 2015, with the other three still operating at the time of writing. These crossings are manually controlled from a signal box, which also has the unusual task of changing the overhead wire voltage between 600v DC for trams and 1500v DC for trains. The two systems are also different gauges, with Melbourne's trams being 1435mm Standard Gauge while the railway network is 1600mm Broad Gauge.
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