The Victorian Government's Act No. 821, the Railway Construction Act 1884, authorised the construction of 59 new railway lines in the colony, plus additional infrastructure.
Organised by the Minister for Railways, Thomas Bent, and passed on 12 December 1884, it became notorious for the large number of railway lines it authorised, and was dubbed the "Octopus Act". It was accompanied by the Railway Loan Act, No. 760, which permitted the raising of a loan of £600,000 for construction of the various lines.
The act, "to authorize the Construction of certain Lines of Railway by the State and for other purposes", listed 51 "country lines", 8 "suburban lines", 4 short connections and bridges, and 2 "railway[s] or sidings", specifying 65 pieces of new infrastructure in total. It also provided for additional platforms, buildings, sidings, road approaches, drains, bridge widenings and modifications to existing infrastructure as necessary. It allowed for an average expenditure of £3,960 per mile for the country lines, and £14,294 per mile for the suburban lines.
The depression of the 1890s soon rendered many of these lines unviable.
Scheduled lines.
Suburban lines.
Schedule numbers are as given.
Additional infrastructure.
Schedule numbers are as given, with authorised expenditure from Section 7 where given.
Section 4 provided for "Additional sidings etc. on existing lines".
Section 7 also authorised expenditure on the following works:
Implementation.
The task of implementing the act fell to Richard Speight, chief railway commissioner at the time, a role created by the Victorian Railways Commissioners Act of 1883.
Beneficiaries of the act included construction engineers such as Andrew O'Keefe, and politicians such as Thomas Bent himself, who reaped the rewards of commissioning construction in their own electorates.
Construction of the lines was complete by April 1890.
By 1892, amid the background of a worsening economic depression, outrage at the excesses of the construction boom, including a number of "white elephants", led to the sacking of Speight, as well as the other commissioners, Richard Ford and A.J. Agg. The Railways Act of 1892 attempted to reverse some of the damage.