Miniature Trains In Melbourne // The Diamond Valley Railway!

What if I told you, that there's an independent railway system in suburban Melbourne, which carries thousands of passengers each week, has a complicated track layout and signalling system, several bridges and tunnels, and has been operating for over 60 years? This is the Diamond Valley Railway, a quite remarkable 7¼” (184mm) gauge miniature railway, located in Eltham Lower Park, a couple of kilometres south of the Eltham township – and not far from another feature I've mentioned a lot on this ch

annel, the Eltham Trestle Bridge. Trains run on a scenic circuit through bushland alongside the Diamond Creek, taking around 12 to 15 minutes to complete each run. The fleet includes numerous diesel locomotives, powered by various diesel or petrol engines, electric stock powered by batteries, and several live steam locomotives. The railway is very popular with young families, and when I was growing up in this area in the 90s we made countless visits to what we called 'the little trains,' and I'm

sure it played a part in inspiring the ..slight.. interest in railways I have today. Visiting the railway is always a nostalgic experience for me, especially as many of the locomotives are older than I am, such as this American outline 2-4-0 'Pauline,' which I clearly remember riding behind as a kid. I'm Tyler Howie, the president of the Diamond Valley Railway. Diamond Valley Railway's been at Eltham Lower Park since 1961, but our origins trace back to 1948 at the Chelsworth Park in Ivanhoe. We

ran there until 1959, after which the railway was flooded, and shortly after we did a search all around Melbourne for a suitable location, and we landed on Eltham Lower Park. The railway carries about 155,000 people per year – and that was our number just before Covid - and on a busy day we can run up to 12 trains, each carrying 30 people at a time, and they do about 3.5 trips each per hour. The mainline run is 1.95km, we have additional sidings and alternative routes as well and that brings us

up to a total of just under 5km. There are three stations on the railway – the main one is called Diamond Valley, and consists of two through platforms with a centre track running down the middle, and a third dead-end platform which allows trains to shunt out from the yard at the start of their run without obstructing the main line. The two other stations are Meadmore Junction, and Pine Creek, both single platforms which are used only for special events. The railway offers private trains for ch

ildren's birthday parties, which operate out of these two sites. The main line consists of two complete loops, which intertwine around one another, and on normal running days, the following route is used: Trains depart from Platform 2 at Diamond Valley, then head out past the workshops, on the Outer Circle. The line drops gradually downhill, curves around through the middle of the site, then out onto the Pine Tree Loop, which was a major extension opened in 1984. The line curves around through P

ine Creek station, running alongside the main road and bike track, with trains clearly visible to passing traffic. Trains then reach the lowest point of the line, crossing a large brick bridge with three arches. The line climbs gradually up to Murdoch Loop, and enters the Rocla Tunnel, which is the longer of two tunnels, on a rising gradient, and passes under both the inner and outer circles above. The line then loops around through Meadmore Junction, and passes over a high steel bridge up above

the tunnel entrance. We are now on the Up Through line, which climbs back up towards the workshops, then around past the clubrooms and back into Diamond Valley – but the journey isn't over yet. Trains run through the centre track here – track 1A, then continue out the other side on the Inner Circle, which runs alongside the Outer Circle back down to the centre of the site. Along here is the Avenue of Honour, with trees and plaques commemorating members of the organisation who have passed away.

The line then crosses the Chelsworth Bridge – a very historic structure, which was relocated from the original railway in Ivanhoe - then curves around back into Meadmore Junction again. This time, trains divert to the right onto the Up Local line, entering Barling Tunnel, which is a bit shorter and a much smaller diameter. Emerging from the tunnel, the line passes the Sanctuary sidings and Nillumbik workshop, before looping back around past the club rooms and back into Diamond Valley Platform 2,

where passengers are dropped off on the first part of the long platform, before the train moves forward empty to collect the next load of passengers at the departure end of the station. The railway's operating practices are based heavily those of the full size Victorian Railways, and to me, the most amazing thing about this railway is undoubtedly the signalling system. It might be small, but DVR carries real passengers on frequent trains, and many of the safety considerations present on a full

size railway, also exist here. The entire line is equipped with interlocked signalling based on VR practices, and is controlled from two signal boxes – Diamond Valley B box, and Meadmore Junction. Hi I'm Rob, and I'm one of the Signallers here at Diamond Valley Railway. Well, welcome to Diamond Valley B box! This is the largest signal box at Diamond Valley Railway, and we have an 80 lever mechanical frame replica. The signal box is based on Ringwood, and is a half size replica – well, it's based

on Ringwood, it's not exactly a replica. And similarly the frame is quarter size, because if we made the box quarter size, we couldn't fit in it. These days, this is actually the biggest signal box – or, mechanical signal box in Victoria. Frankston, which is the only large mechanical box left, has only about 70 levers, and most of those are spares anyway, only a small number are actually working. So the frame follows basic mechanical interlocking principals: The red levers are signals, the blac

k levers are points, blue levers here unlock the points. Although it's a mechanical replica frame, it actually works electronically. There are switches underneath, and also mechanical, or electro-mechanical locks, that lock the levers. It's controlled by a Programmable Logic Controller, and the rest of the railway is controlled by two more PLCs, one for this end, and one for Meadmore Junction. The same PLC drives this illuminated diagram here, which shows the position of each train, you can see

two red lights, the two trains in the platform at the moment. It also shows where all the signals are and the points, and so on. What else have we got on the frame.. We've got indicators, to show us where the mechanical signals – the status of the mechanical signals. These are prototypical ones from the Victorian Railways. Because the railway is controlled by the PLCs, we have a lot of flexibility, so we can switch out different parts of the frame, we can switch out everything, so it all works a

utomatically, or we can switch over to some PCs behind me here, where we can actually control the entire railway from here, with perhaps only one person. So, on a busy day though, we'd need three people in here, and one person up in Meadmore. Unlike B box with it's traditional lever frame, Meadmore Junction is more of a modern control centre, with entirely computer based operation and large monitors showing current train positions, signals and points. A train describer system is used to show whi

ch specific train is in each location. Meadmore's elevated position up amongst the trees, gives a great view down to trains running through the junction below. The signals themselves represent a journey through the complex history of VR signalling: the Diamond Valley station area is protected by two-position lower-quadrant semaphores and disc signals, then out on the main line you'll see two position colour light, three position signalling including Home and Automatic signals, a three position U

pper Quadrant semaphore – as well as co-acting signals, banner indicators and route indicators. If none of that makes sense, you'd better go check out my video on Victorian signalling after this. A personal favourite detail of mine is this pair of fairly unremarkable looking signals, which are two-position automatic semaphores – this is a really cool bit of representation, because they never actually existed on the real railway network – but they were proposed, and do appear in the 1966 book of

Rules and Regulations. There are also a number of active level crossings around the line fitted with lights and bells, and another rarity – a wig-wag crossing light. While trains normally follow the continuous loop I described earlier, there are many other possible routes permitted by a number of crossovers and this triangle junction, and large sections of the line are signalled for bi-directional operation. So when the line isn't too busy, it's possible to run multiple trains in opposing direct

ions on the Pine Tree loop, crossing at Pine Creek and Murdoch Loop. Most of the footage in this video was shot on a quiet Wednesday afternoon, which allowed me to film some examples of this bi-directional operation. But it's the normal loop running which allows the maximum of 12 trains to operate, and every bit of that capacity is needed on most Sundays, when the railway typically carries around 2000 passengers over 6 hours of running. In the early days of the railway, much of the rollingstock

was built to purely functional designs without trying to replicate real trains, such as this remarkable passenger car which survives from the old location in Ivanhoe, and still carries the Chelsworth Park Railroad initials. Designs then evolved to become safer and more comfortable, and by the 1970s the focus had shifted to creating more realistic scale models. The Diamond Valley fleet today consists an eclectic mix of locomotives and rollingstock based on a variety of full size prototypes, inclu

ding representations from various interstate mainline systems, the Queensland cane fields, several examples from the United States, and of course a strong showing of local Victorian Railways stock. There are some Melbourne suburban trains including this Dogbox set which is approaching 50 years old, and this immaculate four car Tait set, and Tait parcels van. There are also several freelance designs only loosely based on full size prototypes. In service, trains are often made up of a mix of proto

types, and it's common to see some interesting consists that you definitely won't see on a full size railway. There are also various ways and works vehicles, including this massive leaf sucker. The fleet is maintained in a large 20 road workshop building, with roads 1 to 8 handling carriage sets, and 9 to 20 for locomotives. Inside the workshop, the floor drops down below track level to allow easy access for maintenance, and locomotives can also be lifted using a 2 tonne crane. During my visit t

here were several steam and diesel locomotives being worked on. There's also another 12 road carriage shed, the Sanctuary sidings, built as a bunker style with an earth roof, and another small workshop built into the back of the clubroom building – which is also where signalling equipment is maintained. If you'd like to see this incredible little railway for yourself, it's a short ride from Eltham station on the 513 or 902 bus, or if you're feeling fit it's a lovely walk or ride along the Diamon

d Creek Trail. So we're open on Sundays between 11am and 5pm, Wednesdays during school holidays, except during December, between 1pm and 4pm, and selected public holidays between 1pm and 4pm. We're an entirely volunteer run organisation, volunteers conduct all the maintenance, the administration, and also the operations of the trains. We're looking for people from all walks of life, no matter their skill set we're hopeful that we can find a job for them, and it is very important that we keep on

getting a steady stream of volunteers to continue the operation here at Diamond Valley Railway. We also have a number of special events across the year, we have our very popular 12 hour run in March, where we run from 11am to 11pm, and during the morning of that run we donate about $22,000 to local community groups. We have our Good Friday Appeal twilight run, on Good Friday, we also have our Winter Light Spectacular, where the railway is covered in lights, while we run in the evening. And we al

so have our teddy bear's picnic event. So there you have it, that's the Diamond Valley Railway! If you'd like to watch a driver's perspective of the full circuit in real time, there's a link to that coming up on your screen in one moment. A huge thanks to the volunteers at DVR for showing me around, and thanks very much for watching!