Melbourne to The Murray Rail Escape

This morning after an early breakfast and check out, we’ll walk across the road to Southern Cross Station to board our private heritage train for a full day of adventure on the rails. Hauled by two heritage locomotives in their traditional Victorian Railways blue and gold livery, our train includes comfortable ‘E’ type non air-conditioned seating cars that have windows that open, allowing you to be better connected to the passing scenery.

A special feature is the spectacular 1906 built ‘Yarra’ Parlor Car, originally built for the ‘Sydney Limited’, which connected Melbourne to Albury until 1937. The open air balcony gives you the best possible place to take in the views as our train rolls through the open plains of Northwestern Victoria. 

Rolling through Melbourne’s suburbs and out into the Victorian countryside gives a special sense of freedom as we first travel south, then northwest and across the enormous Moorabool Viaduct – a 440-metre long bluestone and iron viaduct opened in 1862 to carry the Geelong-Ballarat railway over the river valley, and still in use today, albeit with added safety features. Designed by Victorian Railways engineer Frederick Esling, it was once the largest early metal truss bridge in Australia.  

After passing through Ballarat, we’ll pause briefly at Maryborough to pick up our lunch, saving a longer visit at this grand historic station for our return journey. Continuing on, at Wycheproof the line turns into the middle of the Calder Highway, running right through town! It’s an unusual sight and will no doubt turn the heads of locals and a few train chasers who usually follow heritage trains to this location to capture the event.

Upon arrival at Sea Lake, where one of the few intact stations remain on this line, we’ll transfer to a private coach for the run to Swan Hill and our accommodation for the evening. After checking into our motel, located right on the main street, we’ll walk to dinner at a local Club to exchange a few laughs and share the memories we’ve already made.

Overnight: Jane Eliza Motor Inn, Swan Hill (B, L, D)

After breakfast at a cafe across the road from our motel, we’ll return to Sea Lake station and our waiting train to follow the line away from the riverlands all the way south back to Melbourne. A great feature of this journey is getting to know the wonderful crew members, many of whom forgo being paid for their time, so that as much of our charter fee as possible goes directly back into the heritage rail society that maintains and operates the train.  

Our first stop today will be the tiny town of Nullawil, with a population of approximately 300 people on a good day, and one of the towns on the Victoria Silo Art Trail – we’ll have a look at the incredible artwork painted by artist Sam Bates, aka Smug – before continuing on to Wycheproof. This time we’ll stop in the middle of the main street so you can disembark and take a photo of this quirky set up – a train parked in the middle of the street.  Meanwhile, our crew will collect our lunch to be served in the Dining Car as we continue on to Maryborough and its spectacular railway station, where we’ll disembark for a short tour of this magnificent building. 

The railway first reached Maryborough in July 1874, when lines arrived from both Ballarat and Castlemaine (the latter line, known as the Moolort line, is now closed). The town quickly became an important junction in country Victoria, with multiple routes intersecting there in its heyday.  The current grand building, opened in 1890, is often described as one of the grandest or most elaborate country railway stations in Victoria. Built in the Queen Anne style, it features red-brick construction, elaborate late-19th-century railway architecture, a clock tower, and a broad iron-canopied platform.The American author Mark Twain visited Maryborough in 1895 and famously remarked that it was “a railway station with a town attached” (implying the station’s scale dwarfed the town itself).

Back on our train, we’ll roll into Ballarat in the late afternoon and make the short walk to our nearby hotel to check in.  After some time to freshen up, we’ll gather for a jolly farewell dinner (including drinks) in the hotel restaurant. 

Overnight: The Provincial Hotel, Ballarat (B, L, D)

This morning after a leisurely breakfast and check out, we’ll head back to the station for our last day on the rails, enjoying a ‘picnic lunch’ in the Dining Car before rolling into Southern Cross Station around 2pm, signalling the end of our tour. 

(B, L)