Newport Railway Museum

05/06/2026

Good evening to all our friends and followers! We are looking forward to opening the museum tomorrow (Saturday) from 12 noon to 5pm.

Today we pause to mark a special anniversary in Victoria’s railway history concerning a locomotive not in our museum’s collection, but one that is very special to many Victorian railfans. One hundred years ago today, at Colac Station where once a narrow-gauge railway headed south into the beautiful Otway Ranges to Beech Forest and onwards to Weeaproinah and Crowes, a most interesting steam locomotive went into service: the Victorian Railways G Class Garratt.

Only two of these magnificent machines would ultimately be built; G41, which went into service at Colac on 5 June, and G42, which entered service on 28 June 1926 running the narrow-gauge line from Moe to Walhalla.

Built by Beyer Peacock & Co. of Manchester, UK, these two locomotives were articulated, which was their special power. Unlike a conventional steam locomotive that has driving wheels, cylinders and boiler all part of the same fixed unit, the Garratt locomotive has two engine units, each supporting a separate central boiler unit, with the engine units each able to swivel to allow the locomotive to easily make its way around very sharp curves. In the case of G41 and G42, they could take curves of as little as two chains (forty metres) in radius. Each of the two engine units had its own pair of cylinders driving six driving wheels, meaning that the entire locomotive had four cylinders and twelve driving wheels, providing excellent adhesion while also spreading the weight to allow a very low axle load.

This made them a perfect choice for Victoria’s narrow gauge railways, where the conventional NA Class “Puffing Billy” type locomotives were already struggling to haul freight loads on the steeply-graded, sharply-curving Walhalla and Beech Forest Lines, each of which was generating thousands of tons of timber traffic each month. Not only could the Garratt locomotive haul more than double the freight of the NA Class locomotives, they were able to do it with such ease that they saved around forty percent on fuel, and required far fewer stops for water.

When the Walhalla Line eventually closed in 1954, G42 was sent to Colac which it worked together with sister locomotive G41. When that line finally closed in June 1962, G41 was broken up into pieces and sent away to be scrapped. G42 was sent back to Newport, but was fortunately purchased by the Puffing Billy Preservation Society, albeit after most copper parts had already been stripped for scrap. After a lot of fundraising and a lot of work repairing or replacing parts, G42 was eventually returned to service on the Puffing Billy Railway in 2004. It ran until 2021, when it was placed in the museum at Menzies Creek.

You can read about these wonderful locomotives in the latest edition of Newsrail magazine, which will be on sale at Newport Railway Museum when we open tomorrow from 12 noon to 5pm. As always, you can book your tickets online at trybooking.com/eventlist/newportrailwaymuseum, or just purchase them at the counter when you arrive!

29/05/2026

We had a very busy time at the museum last weekend, with several hundred visitors attending across both days.

This weekend we are open on Saturday from 12 to 5pm. You'll see a few minor changes as we progress some trackwork at the western end of the museum site, but we'll be keeping our beloved Hitachi carriage open for viewing, along with all the other exhibits we regularly open.

As always, you can book your tickets online at trybooking.com/eventlist/newportrailwaymuseum or, if you prefer, simply purchase your tickets at the counter when you arrive.

22/05/2026

Welcome to the weekend! And we're delighted to advise that this weekend, we're once again opening on both Saturday AND Sunday, where you can see our beautiful collection of steam, diesel and electric locomotives, passenger carriages and goods wagons, and many other exhibits.

We open every Saturday, and this weekend we received a special request from a nearby organisation asking us to open on Sunday as part of a special day for their employees and their families. We decided that given our volunteers will already be onsite, we might as well open to the general public too!

We'll be open from 12 to 5pm for our regular Saturday opening, and 12 to 4pm for our special additional Sunday opening.

As always, you can purchase your tickets at our front counter, or book them online at trybooking.com/eventlist/newportrailwaymuseum

See you at the museum!

22/05/2026

We're delighted to see VicTrack raising awareness of the contribution that volunteers have made across the state to the preservation of our railway heritage.

Newport Railway Museum is a 100% volunteer-operated enterprise, and we feel very fortunate to have such a great team of people across the many and varied roles in our organisation. Being entirely volunteer-run, all the proceeds from our sales of tickets and merchandise are directed back into the improvement of the site and the care of its exhibits.

17/05/2026

We’re open today (Sunday 17 May) until 5pm! The rain seems to have moved on and we’re in for a fine if cloudy afternoon.

15/05/2026

A very good evening to all our friends and followers. This weekend, the museum is open on both Saturday AND Sunday, in conjunction with the Sunday opening of the Altona Miniature Railway and Williamstown Craft Market. We're open 12 noon to 5pm each day. While there's some rain forecast for the weekend, at this stage it's looking like it won't start until Saturday evening, and will have mostly passed during Sunday morning.

Even when it is raining, there's plenty to see and do at the museum under our big roof canopies, or inside the various buildings on site. You can take a look inside the cabs of 1923 suburban electric train carriage 8M, 1910 suburban steam locomotive D4 268, as well as seventeen other locomotives and carriages with stairs available to either view or enter the interior.

You can purchase your tickets at the museum counter when you arrive, or if you prefer, prebook them at trybooking.com/eventlist/newportrailwaymuseum

03/05/2026

This week, we mark 100 years since the inaugural run on 3 May 1926 of 'The Geelong Flier', an express train that ran non-stop from Melbourne's Flinders Street Station to Geelong Station in 70 minutes – and within a few months of its launch – just 60 minutes!

The service was launched by Victorian Railways in response to growing competition from road transport, with a privately operator running a Melbourne to Geelong bus service. The VR responded not only by launching its own road service at a price that undercut the private operator, it also offered a new train service aimed at the business traveller that leveraged the two areas where rail held a natural advantage over road transport of the day: speed and comfort.

The first services of the Geelong Flier were limited to 70 minutes by the need to slow down to under 20 miles per hour (32 km/h) at multiple points along the route for the exchange (by hand) of the staff, the metal rod which acted as authority for a train to be on a section of single-track railway at any time, part of a system designed to avoid two trains ever entering the same section and risking a collision. However, within five months of the new service commencing, VR had installed automatic staff exchange apparatus that allowed the staffs to be exchanged at the full line speed of 60 miles per hour (97 km/h). With this upgrade, the running time for the Flinders Street Station to Geelong service was cut to just 60 minutes.

A year later, the service was changed, with the express now running all the way to Port Fairy, delivering big reductions in journey times of an hour or more to cities along the route. However, the train (renamed simply 'The Flier') departed from Spencer Street Station (today known as Southern Cross Station) and due to the extra carriages for the longer journey, running time to Geelong increased to 63 minutes. However, over the following decade track and signalling improvements, the raising of the track speed to a maximum 70 miles per hour (113 km/h) as well as performance modifications to the A2 Class locomotives hauling the train saw the journey time to Geelong cut to just 55 minutes by 1938.

Today, in 2026, the Geelong rail route is the busiest route on the regional network, carrying 11.4 million passengers in 2025/26, with over sixty return services each weekday. The trains now run at up to 160 km/h, but run via a longer route via Sunshine and Tarneit. One of these, an evening express service, gets from Southern Cross Station to Geelong in just 50 minutes.

At the Newport Railway Museum we are pleased to have in our collection two of the A2 Class express passenger locomotives synonymous with the Flier. One of these, A2 884, is of the very same type as A2 906, the locomotive that hauled the very first 'Geelong Flier' a century ago.

Photos: State Library Victoria

24/04/2026

Tomorrow (Saturday 25 April) is of course ANZAC Day. The museum will be open from 12 noon to 5pm as normal, and we extend an invitation to all visitors to visit the Newport Workshops War Memorial during the course of their visit. The memorial is set within a rose garden at the north western corner of the recently expanded railway museum site.

The memorial was originally erected by the employees of the railway workshops to commemorate their fallen comrades of World War One. Inscriptions were added at a later date to commemorate World War Two, Korea and Vietnam.

Tickets for the museum can be purchased at the front counter when you arrive, or you can pre-book them online at trybooking.com/eventlist/newportrailwaymuseum

18/04/2026

We were delighted to welcome a group of cubs from 1st Alphington Scout Group recently, although some were perplexed by how high the windscreens are in the L Class electric locomotive! This young budding train driver might need some extra height adjustment on the driver's seat.

Cubs from 1st Alphington Scout Group walked from their camp at Altona to visit the railway museum, where they had a great time exploring the trains and learning about their history.

18/04/2026

The sun is peeking out from the clouds and its a fine afternoon at the museum today.

We're open 12 noon to 5pm today AND also tomorrow (Sunday 19 April); don't forget that tomorrow you can also visit the Altona Miniature Railway from 10am to 3pm!

Please note that the Champion Road level crossing is now closed and the Maddox Road crossing is also closed this weekend. So if you are wanting to get from Altona Miniature Railway to Newport Railway Museum tomorrow, we recommend heading up to Mason Street and then heading down Melbourne Road.

See you there!