The Craigieburn line is the city's sixth shortest Melbourne metropolitan railway line at 27.0 kilometres. Services on the line began from North Melbourne to Essendon by the Melbourne & Essendon Railway Company in November 1860. It was closed shortly after, however, the Victorian Railways reopened the Flemington Racecourse line (including the Essendon line as far as Newmarket) in November 1867, and in January 1871, to Essendon. The line was progressively electrified and, in 1921, the line was electrified to Broadmeadows, where it remained till the extension of electrification in 2007.
Since the 2000s, due to the heavily utilised infrastructure of the Craigieburn line, improvements and upgrades have been made. Works have included replacing sleepers, upgrading signalling technology, the extension of the line to Craigieburn, the construction of new stations, the removal of level crossings, the introduction of new rolling stock, and station accessibility upgrades.
The line runs from Flinders Street station in central Melbourne to Craigieburn station in the north, serving 21 stations via North Melbourne, Essendon, and Broadmeadows. The line operates for approximately 19 hours a day (from approximately 5:00 am to around 12:00 am) with 24 hour service available on Friday and Saturday nights. During peak hour, headways of up to 5 minutes are operated with services every 20–30 minutes during off-peak hours. Trains on the Craigieburn line run with a two three-car formations of Comeng or Siemens Nexas trainsets.
The underground City Loop is at the centre of Melbourne's busy suburban railway system. It's quite an unusual design, being made up of four completely independent single track tunnels, some of which change direction half way through the day. Trains travel underground in a clockwisw direction from Flagstaff, Melbourne Central, Parliament stations to Flinders Street station, across the Flinders Street Railway Viaduct to Southern Cross Station, then on to North Melbourne.
North Melbourne railway station is the junction station for the Craigieburn, Flemington Racecourse, Sunbury, Upfield, Werribee and Williamstown lines. It serves the north-western Melbourne suburb of West Melbourne, and it opened on 6 October 1859. The first railway through the site of North Melbourne station was today's Williamstown line, and the first section of the Melbourne, Mount Alexander and Murray River Railway Company line (to Sunbury), both opened on 13 January 1859. The first passenger station with two platforms was opened on 6 December 1859, and the present six platform station was opened on 9 June 1886.
Kensigton is a residential and decreasingly industrial suburb 3 km. north-west of Melbourne. It is commonly associated with Flemington, once being in the Flemington and Kensington borough (1882-1906). Its northern boundary is Racecourse Road, the western boundary is Smithfield Road and the Maribyrnong River, the southern boundary is Dynon Road and the eastern boundary is the Moonee Ponds Creek. Kensington contained the Newmarket saleyards and abattoirs, and in its south there are the Dynon Road railway yards and a small area known as Browns Hill east of the railway yards.
Cattle saleyards opened in 1859, the year before a railway line from North Melbourne to Essendon began operation, with stations at Kensington and Newmarket. Although sheep and cattle were driven to the stockyard on the hoof (and used residential streets as stock routes until the 1950s), the Newmarket railway siding also became active during night hours for holding and delivering stock. In the mid 1870s Kensington included a small area named Balmoral. Future subdivisions yielded street names with a similar regal flavour, somewhat ironical given the proximity of the proletarian slaughter yards. In addition to the riverside industries there were three tanners, a candlemaker and a chapel with a school. The swamp areas were virtually untouched until the Army established an ordnance depot at the back of the abattoirs in 1941.
Newmarket is located in the suburb of Flemington, on the Craigieburn railway line. Newmarket station opened on November 1, 1860 as part of the private Melbourne and Essendon Railway Company line to Essendon. The station closed with the line in 1864 until it was reopened in 1871 under government ownership. A permanent station building was not constructed until 1886, with the present buildings dating from 1925, while the bridge at Racecourse Road is the third on the site.
Ascot Vale is a suburb 7km north-west of Melbourne. Ascot Vale West Post Office opened on 1 January 1888 and was renamed Ascot Vale around 1893. An Ascot Vale East office was open from 1914 until 1979. Ascot Vale was founded as a dry suburb, but hotels were soon built at the outside corners of the settlement. It is currently the first point of call for all packages imported to Victoria by UPS. Ascot Vale station opened on November 1, 1860 as part of the private Melbourne and Essendon Railway Company line to Essendon. The station closed with the line in 1864 until it was reopened in 1871 under government ownership.
Ascot Vale is bounded in the west by the Maribyrnong River, in the north by Maribyrnong and Ormond Roads, in the east by the Moonee Ponds Creek, and in the south by Lyons Road, Epsom Road to the railway line thence generally north-east to Moonee Ponds Creek. A major landmark in the suburb is the Royal Melbourne Showgrounds, which has special events such as the annual Royal Melbourne Show. The Showgrounds are adjacent to the Flemington Racecourse which is in neighbouring Flemington.
Moonee Ponds is 7 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley. Moonee Ponds Post Office opened on 15 January 1861. Though there are no written records it is probable that the Moonee Ponds Creek takes its name from an indigenous inhabitant named Moonee Moonee, who, along with Tullamareena, burnt down and escaped from the first Melbourne gaol in 1838. The Port Phillip area was first settled by Europeans in 1835. The first land sales in the area of Strathmore on Moonee Ponds Creek were made in 1843 and 1845.
Moonee Valley city was formed on 15 December, 1994, by the union of Essendon city and the parts of Keilor city which comprised Avondale Heights, Airport West and Niddrie. Moonee Valley city has a northerly train line in its eastern sector together with a tramline in roughly the same direction. The tramline ends at the Essendon airport and the Westfield Shopping Town at the municipality's north-western extremity. The railway line on the western boundary is the standard - gauge route.
Essendon is 10 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley. At the 2006 Census, Essendon had a population of 18,213. Essendon and the banks of the Maribyrnong River were originally inhabited by the Wurundjeri tribe of the Kulin Aboriginal peoples. In 1803 Charles Grimes and James Fleming were the first known European explorers into the Maribyrnong area. In 1851 the gold rush opened up the Moonee Ponds District with miners travelling along Mount Alexander Road to Castlemaine. Essendon Post Office opened on 18 August 1856.
Established as an airfield in 1921, in February 1950, Essendon Airport became Australia's second, and Melbourne's first international airport. The airport was renamed Melbourne Airport, and the first international commercial flight arrived from New Zealand a year later. Within a decade of its opening, Essendon Airport was found to be too small to handle the large jet aircraft being introduced onto domestic and international air routes, such as the Boeing 707.
Being increasibly surrounded by housing, expansion was impossible, so in 1959, Cabinet approved the acquisition of 2,167 ha (5,350 acres) in Tullamarine for the purpose of a new international airport, which began construction in the 1960s and was ready to handle aircraft by 1967, but not passenger flights. At this time, Essendon was no longer named Melbourne Airport, with the new airport rapidly taking shape. Commercial international flights were transferred to the new airport in 1970, with commercial domestic flights following the next year.
Glenbervie is a railway station located in the suburb of Essendon, on the Craigieburn railway line. Glenbervie station opened on September 11, 1922, a year after the line through it had been electrified, the railway having opened in 1872 as part of the North East railway to Wodonga.
Strathmore is 11 km north-west from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Moonee Valley. At the 2006 Census, Strathmore had a population of 7775. The Tullamarine Freeway effectively cuts the suburb into northern and southern halves. The first land sales in the area of Strathmore were made in 1843 and 1845 in the Parish of Doutta Galla. Major Frederick Berkley St John, was the purchaser of the Strathmore North area.
The area of Strathmore was originally called North Essendon. The name of "Strathmore" was first suggested by the Rev. John Sinclair in 1936 and was initially adopted by the church. The name was derived from Thomas Napier's Scottish heritage, the valley of Strathmore, Scotland close to where he once lived. The name was submitted to Council in 1943. In 1955 the Railways changed the name of the station from North Essendon to Strathmore.
A residential area, west of Coburg, between 7 km. and 11 km. north of Melbourne. It is named after Pascoeville, the property owed by John Pascoe Fawkner and bounded approximately by the Moonee Ponds Creek, Gaffney Street, Northumberland Road and the western prolongation of Boundary Road. Fawkner acquired the property in 1839 as one of eleven lots in the subdivision of the Coburg district by the government surveyor, Robert Hoddle. In 1885 the Pascoe Vale railway station was built at the cost of the subdividers, and had a country rail timetable, the suburban service ending at Essendon. That was the westerly edge of the present Pascoe Vale.
Well beyond Pascoe Vale's eastern edge was Coburg North with its railway line. The space in between was not filled by housing until the 1950s. Apart from the infrequency of trains the problems of unmade roads, unreticulated utilities and no sewerage deterred house builders. A primary school was not opened until 1911. On 26 June, 1927, the tram service along Melville Road to Bell Street, Pascoe Vale South, was opened, terminating at the main neighbourhood shopping centre for the area. Pascoe Vale's census population in 1921 was 348, and any substantial increase awaited post-war immigration and residential expansion.
Oak Park, a residential suburb 11 km. north of Melbourne, is situated in the southern part of Glenroy. Its western border is the Moonee Ponds Creek. The name is thought to derive from a property once owned by John Pascoe Fawkner. Fawkner acquired land in the Oak Park area in 1839 at a Government land sale. Consisting of 316 ha., it ran eastwards from the Moonee Ponds Creek to today's Pascoe Vale. The Sydney Road (now Pascoe Vale Road), ran through the land.
When the railway line went through the area in 1872 no railway station was provided at Oak Park. When the line was electrified in 1921 the stations were confined to Pascoe Vale and Glenroy, and the Oak Park station was built in the mid 1950s after housing came to the area. Being without a railway station, housing subdivisions did not occur until after the second world war. The 1950s and 1960s saw the area's quickest growth. By 1970 the area was nearly filled with housing, although the Oak park mansion had a 600 bird poultry shed in its grounds when it was sold that year.
Glenroy is a residential area 13 km. north of Melbourne. It contains the locality of Oak Park and the lesser ones of Gowrie, Westbreen and Hadfield. Its name comes form the Glenroy pastoral run occupied by Duncan Cameron from Glen Roy, Scotland. Cameron was one of several Scots farmers in the district whose tenure is still visible in the bluestone Scots church at Campbellfield. The area occupied by today's suburb was held by the Kennedy family, also from Inverness, Scotland, who arrived in Port Phillip in the mid 1840s.
After the second world war Australian National Airways sponsored housing for its employees in Glenroy West (1946) and the War Service Homes Commission began building on the other side of the railway line in 1950. The following year the Housing Commission took control of 2,226 ha. of land in the Broadmeadows municipality, including Glenroy north, for housing. Between 1953 and 1957 the Commission completed about 1,700 houses in Glenroy and Jacana (the railway station next after Glenroy). Housing in Glenroy south proceeded at a similar pace.
Jacana is 16 km north from Melbourne's central business district. At the 2006 Census, Jacana had a population of 1,963. The name Jacana was applied to an area between Broadmeadows and Glenroy in the 1950s by the Housing Commission of Victoria (HCV). The name comes from Jacana Street, to the east of the Craigieburn railway line. Both the street and the suburb are slightly to the north of the Jacana railway station, which was built to service the suburb in 1959.
Broadmeadows is a residential and industrial suburb 16 km. north of Melbourne and until 1994 it was a municipality. The lightly wooded landscape between the Merri and Moonee Ponds Creeks attracted pastoralists in the 1840s. In 1850 a Government survey laid out a township in an area along the Moonee Ponds Creek valley, now known as Westmeadows, but then named Broadmeadow. An Anglican church was built in 1850, and the church, police station and Broadmeadows hotel (now Westmeadows Tavern), in Ardlie Street were the first village centre. East of the old village is today's Broadmeadows, for which the early town centre was Campbellfield. In 1857 the Broadmeadows District Road Board was formed.
A primary school was established by the Anglican church in 1851, becoming a State school in 1870 (now Westmeadows). In 1872 the railway line was extended form Essendon to Seymour, creating a station about 2 km. east of the village. At the height of the landboom in 1889 another line was opened from Coburg, joining the Seymour line at Somerton. A station was provided at Campbellfield. These lines tended to draw subdivision and speculation eastwards, away from the Broadmeadows village. Hence the naming of the local municipal council as Broadmeadows shire on 27 January, 1871, did not reflect where the district's future prosperity lay. The village was isolated westwards, separated from the railway areas by open grass lands. Broadmeadows consisted of farms, many of them dairying, and the few large holdings were subject to closer settlement subdivision during the early 1900s.
Coolaroo is a residential and industrial suburb 18 km. north of Melbourne, west of the Ford motor car factory, Hume Highway, and between Broadmeadows and Somerton. The name is thought to be derived from an Aboriginal word for brown snake. Coolaroo was part of a large area acquired by the Housing Commission in 1951 for a housing estate. Construction in the Coolaroo area began in 1966 and the first primary school was opened the next year. A later State primary school has become St. Marys Coptic Orthodox College.
Couurage Breweries Ltd. opened a brewery in 1968. It later became a Tooth Brewery and then a factory for Australian Consolidated Hosiery. Larger factories to the north include Pratt Industries. When Coolaroo was first laid out it extended westwards to include the area now named Meadow Heights. Its western boundary is now Pascoe Vale Road.
Roxburgh Park is an area of 650 ha. about 20 km. north of Melbourne, between Craigieburn and Greenvale. It was in the Broadmeadows city council, now Hume city, and generally in the Merri growth corridor. In 1988-90 the Victorian Government Urban Land Authority purchased the land, which included Roxburgh Park, a farm dating back to about 1848. The name was given by Thomas Brunton in about 1885, after his house in Scotland when he acquired the farm.
The residential settlement of Roxburgh Park will comprise about 7,000 house blocks, released under the supervision of the Urban Land Authority. Settlement has occurred generally from south to north. The undulating terrain attracts new residents with its wide views, and land and building costs are moderate for new families.
Craigieburn is 26 km north from Melbourne's central business district. Its Local Government Area is the City of Hume. At the 2006 Census, Craigieburn had a population of 20,784. Craigieburn s first people were the Wurundjeri Indigenous people. The locality takes its name after an old bluestone inn that catered for travellers along the Old Hume Highway between Sydney and Melbourne. The Old Hume Highway still exists, albeit in a state of disrepair, and is now a continuation of Mickleham Road. raigieburn Post Office opened on 26 February 1866.
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