| Puffing Billy is a steam-operated narrow-gauge railway running in the Dandenong Ranges forty kilometres to the east of Melbourne city centre. When Victorian Railways found that its 5 feet 3 inches gauge was not suitable for sparsely populated hill areas, it constructed four railways to a 2 feet 6 inches narrow gauge, a gauge not used elsewhere in Australia and one which confused the railway compatibility situation even further. This particular line was opened from Upper Ferntree Gully to Gembrook in 1900. It lost money right from the start, but the unfortunate point about it was that the more traffic it carried, the more it lost, so that Victorian Railways was constantly hoping that a good reason would arise for its closure. That occurred in August 1953, when a landslide blocked the line, and on 30th April 1954 it was declared closed.
In November 1954, some farewell trips were operated on the part of the line unaffected by the landslide, between Upper Ferntree Gully and Belgrave, and these trips were so popular that they were continued on a regular basis. In 1958, however, Victorian Railways decided to extend the electrified broad-gauge suburban network to Belgrave and the narrow-gauge operations had to cease. Therefore, those who had been promoting the narrow-gauge trains turned their attentions to the part of the line which had been closed by the landslide. A diversion around the affected area was built in 1959, and on 28th July 1962 the band of volunteers succeeded in running their first Puffing Billy train as far as Menzies Creek. In less than a year, 100,000 passengers had been carried. In 1965, the line was extended to Emerald and in 1975 it reached Lakeside, where it seemed that the restoration efforts would end. However, so successful has this line been that finally, on 18th October 1998, its entire length was reopened and trains ran again to Gembrook for the first time in 45 years.
The Puffing Billy offers a delightful day trip, crossing over wooden trestle bridges and negotiating tight curves. To reach the railway, take a suburban train to the Belgrave terminus, from where Puffing Billy starts. The 10:30 Puffing Billy usually runs right through to Gembrook, while most of the other trains terminate at Lakeside.
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