A land filled with railways, like the USA of my atlas, is a settled land. People can move as they like. No wonder Paul Simon feels that the sound of a train in the distance reassures you that life could be better. All you have to do is travel far enough and you reach that better life. Something like this must have occurred to the people who built Melbourne.
Suburban houses fill the spaces between railways.
Such a plan was made in the 1880s. It was called the Outer Circle Line, and was the most gloriously silly episode in Melbourne's long history of absurdly disastrous public projects. It would provide jobs and guarantee the growth of suburbia. And it would, although nobody said so at the time, symbolize Melbourne's maternal quality, its desire to give total security to its citizens, enclosed as they would be by railways. The Outer Circle Line was actually built during the 1890s, but as the last sections were opened, the first sections were about to be closed down.