 Basic training took place in Hampshire before transfer to Melbourne where railway engineers undertook eight weeks training and construction engineers undertook 16 weeks training, which included eight weeks at the Kings Newton bridge building school.By the end of 1944 the additional facilities were no longer needed and the line was ready to hand back to the LMS.On 11 July 1940 nine Royal Engineer sappers training on the railway were killed by a German bomb dropped on their billet in Church Street, Melbourne.