Railway Map of Victoria
This site contains a railway map of Victoria, set up in bitmap format.
This is a clickable map; click on the relevant section to view the
detailed
map. The only way to move between the detailed maps is to come back to
this page. There are scales and legends
on each of the 8 individual maps.
I have not included the Melbourne and Ballarat areas; this is
because
they are too detailed for a map of this scale.
I also have available a copy of the map in Adobe PDF format.
Click
here to download a copy of the map - 200 kB (it is a zip file, so
you
will need WinZip or a similar program to unzip it). This PDF file is
around
1.4 MB in size unzipped. To view the PDF map, you will need the free
Adobe
Acrobat Viewer, this can be found at the Adobe
web site.
Creation:
The idea for this map came from a similar site set up by Rolfe Bozier,
with railway
maps of New South Wales. After looking at his site, and getting
tips
from him, I began planning this site.
Data Sources:
For the main lines, and later-closed branchlines, the data comes
from computers
with MapInfo.
For the earlier-closed branchlines, and lines into NSW and SA, the data
came from a digitised 1:1 million scale map of Victoria (using
Microstation).
The sections of standard gauge from Melbourne to Albury and Melbourne
to
Geelong were basic lines drawn parallel to the main line, once in
CorelDraw.
The station locations were based on larger-scaled maps.
The opening dates for the lines came primarily from a list in ARHS
Bulletin
from a few years back.
Production Method:
Both sets of data were exported from the original programs as DXF
files,
and then imported into CorelDraw. The two datasets were merged, and
where
there were duplicated lines, the MapInfo data was the data used,
because
it had higher accuracy.
With this done, the stations were added, and the lines were broken
up, according to their opening date. The lines were then colour-coded.
Once this was complete, the original map was divided up into eight
segments, and each segment was individually exported as a GIF file.
Finally, these files were opened in PaintShopPro, where the station
names were added. Work was also done in CorelPhotoPaint.
The PDF map was produced simply by exporting the map from CorelDraw.
Links:
Some other web sites with Australian railway maps:
Railway maps
of New South Wales by Rolfe Bozier. This is an excellent site, and
includes animated maps of the NSW network, along with detailed maps of
individual lines.
Railway maps of
Victoria
by Andrew Waugh. An excellent series of maps, dating every 10 years
from
1860-2000 inclusive.
Railway
map
of
Victoria by Mark Bau (NOTE: this map is approx 1.2MB, and
you will need Adobe Acrobat Reader to view it)
Railway maps of
Australia
by Chris Brownbill
Signalling
diagrams
for
Melbourne
by Chris Gordon
Railway
maps
of
Victoria by Chris Gordon
© Copyright 1999-2008 John Cleverdon
Email: John
Cleverdon