page_title: Rail transport in Victoria
section_title: Companies
hierarchical_section_title: Rail transport in Victoria / Operations / Companies
caption_attribution_description: Pacific National operated train consisting of Victorian X class locomotive X31 and cement hopper wagons, at Grovedale, Victoria, Australia
context_page_description: Rail transport in Victoria, Australia, is provided by a number of railway operators who operate over the government-owned railway lines. The network consists of Victorian broad gauge lines, and an increasing number of standard gauge freight and interstate lines; the latter brought into existence as a result of gauge conversion of the former. Historically, a few experimental 762 mm gauge lines were built, along with various private logging, mining and industrial railways.
  The first railway lines in Victoria were built in the 1850s, and were privately owned and operated. These started having financial problems and were taken over by the Government Railway Department, which was established by the Colonial Government and became a vertically integrated government service. This structure remained until corporatisation began in the 1970s, followed by privatisation in the 1990s. Passenger services on Melbourne's suburban rail network are operated by Metro Trains Melbourne with electric multiple units, and services to regional Victoria by V/Line with diesel trains. Freight services are operated by Aurizon, Pacific National and SCT Logistics, and Qube Logistics and TransVolution.
context_section_description: The first railways in Victoria were operated by private companies, but when these companies failed or defaulted, Victorian Railways took over. The Victorian Railways was initially known as the "Department of Railways" from the first appointment of staff in 1856, and on 1 November 1883 the Victorian Railways Commissioners Act established the "Victorian Railways".
  This situation remained until May 1973 when the Railways (Amendment) Act 1972 passed the management of the Railways from the Victorian Railways Commissioners to a Victorian Railways Board, with rebranding as VicRail following in 1976.
  In 1983 VicRail was split into the State Transport Authority taking responsibility for the provision of country rail and road, passenger and freight services under the V/Line brand; and the Metropolitan Transit Authority taking over suburban passenger operations. These authorities were then merged into the Public Transport Corporation in 1989, with the suburban services rebranded as "The Met".
  In 1993 the Kennett Government offered long-distance country rail services previously run by the government-owned operator V/Line to private operators. While several rail services were replaced by road coach services, West Coast Railway successfully tendered to operate the railway line to Warrnambool, becoming the first private operator in Victoria. In 1993 Professor Fred Hilmer presented the findings of the National Competition Policy Review Committee, known as the Hilmer Report, leading to the introduction of National Competition Policy in 1995. This allowed new rail freight operators to establish operations in Victoria. Specialised Container Transport commenced operating trains to Perth in 1995, and Great Northern Rail Services started intrastate operations.
  Privatisation of the Public Transport Corporation commenced under the Kennett Government of the 1990s. V/Line was split into separate freight and passenger divisions, and "The Met" was divided into Hillside Trains and Bayside Trains. These separate bodies were all sold separately in 1999: V/Line Freight and the rural intrastate network to Freight Victoria, a consortium led by American operator RailAmerica; Hillside Trains and track lease to Connex Melbourne; and V/Line Passenger and Bayside Trains, renamed M>Train and with its track lease, to British operator National Express.
  On 16 December 2002 National Express announced their intention to withdraw financial support from their rail operations in Victoria, including V/Line Passenger and M>Train. The government temporarily resumed control of its systems through receivers and decided to retender the metropolitan rail network to a single operator; Connex won the contract and took control of the entire metropolitan system in February 2004. Meanwhile, in July 2003, the government announced its intention to retain V/Line Passenger in public ownership, and set up the state-owned V/Line Corporation, which bought the operator out of receivership on 1 October 2003.
  16 August 2004 saw the Freight Victoria business and rural track lease was purchased by Pacific National, but by November 2006 they entered into an agreement to sell the track lease back to the Victorian Government for $133.8 million, with the sale completed on 7 May 2007 and V/Line becoming track manager.
  In December 2007 Pacific National announced plans to sell or close its grain transport and Portlink rural container business operations in Victoria. The decision has been criticised as it will force grain growers to use higher cost road transport to transport the annual grain harvest from rural silos to the ports. The decision has seen many commentators accuse Pacific National of only acquiring the operations of Freight Australia in 2004 for the purposes of asset stripping and eliminating competition in rail freight. In 2008 El Zorro took over the Warrnambool - Melbourne container service from Pacific National, and moved into broad gauge grain services, while Aurizon has taken over the Melbourne - Horsham container service.
caption: Pacific National operated freight train
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