19th century

The Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company opened their line from Princes Bridge (later amalgamated with Flinders Street station) to a temporary station on Punt Road in February 1859, then to Cremorne (now closed) in December of that year. Shortly after, the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company opened their railway line from St Kilda to Bay Street (now North Brighton) in December 1859. Twelve months after that, the Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company extended their line from Cremorne to Chapel Street (now Windsor) station, on the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company's line, providing a second route to the city from the Brighton line. The following year, again in December, the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company extended their line to Beach (now Brighton Beach).

The link between St Kilda and Windsor, disused since 1862, was dismantled in 1867, although part of it at the Windsor end was used as a siding for some time afterwards. In 1865, the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company, who owned the St Kilda line, purchased the Melbourne Suburban Railway Company and became the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company, and subsequently bought the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company, which was in financial difficulties, for £99,500. The Victorian Government acquired the United railway company in July 1878.

In September 1887, the Brighton line was extended to Sandringham.

20th century

The new signalling system present at Windsor station, 1918

The Sandringham line became the first line in Victoria to be provided with automatic signals, with the line as far as Elsternwick converted in stages from 1915 to 1918. Then in 1919, the Sandringham line became, with the line to Essendon, the first line in the country to be electrified (apart from a test installation on the Flemington Racecourse line).^[6] Automatic signalling was provided the rest of the way to Sandringham in two stages in during 1926.^[6]

When the underground City Loop line was designed, it was not intended to cater for trains on the Port Melbourne, St Kilda, and Sandringham lines. However, a crossover was installed near Richmond to allow Sandringham trains to cross to the tracks used by the Frankston, Pakenham, and Cranbourne line trains, which had access to the underground loop. In 1985, two Sandringham trains each way were altered to run via the underground loop, and in 1987, with the Port Melbourne and St Kilda lines converted to light rail operation, all off-peak and many peak trains were routed via the underground loop. The commencement of operations involved the service stopping at three new stations—Parliament, Melbourne Central (formally Museum), and Flagstaff.^[7] The Loop follows La Trobe and Spring Streets along the northern and eastern edges of the Hoddle Grid.^[8] The Loop connects with Melbourne's two busiest stations, Flinders Street and Southern Cross, via the elevated Flinders Street Viaduct.^[8] From 2021, Sandringham line services stopped operating through the loop as part of a timetable restructure.^[9]

21st century

In 2021, the metropolitan timetable underwent a major rewrite, resulting in all Sandringham line trains terminating at Flinders Street without operating through the City Loop.^[9]

Network reconfiguration

When the new cross-city rail corridor being built by the Metro Tunnel opens in 2025 there will be a reorganisation of the Melbourne rail network.^[10] The Victorian Department of Transport and Planning plans to return the Frankston line to the City Loop, with dedicated use of the Caulfield group tunnel track.^[11] This will mean Frankston line trains will no longer through-run with Werribee and Williamstown line trains, and will again stop at City Loop stations Flagstaff, Melbourne Central and Parliament.^[11] As part of the reconfiguration, the Sandringham line would instead begin through-running services to Werribee and Williamstown for the first time.^[11]

Stage 4 of the Network Development Plan – Metropolitan Rail proposed that the Upfield and Sandringham lines be joined via a reconfigured City Loop sometime in the 2030s.^[12]

Services

Services on the Sandringham line operates from approximately 5:00am to 12:00am (midnight) daily and all night on Friday and Saturday nights.^[13] Services run every 7–8 minutes during peak hour, with services running every 15 minutes during the inter-peak period on weekdays, and every 20 minutes at night and during the day on weekends (with the exception of early Sunday mornings when services run every 40 minutes until 10:00am). Additionally, services run every 60 minutes overnight on Friday and Saturday nights as part of the Night Network.^[3] Services don't run via the City Loop, instead they run direct to Flinders Street.^[14]

Operators

The Sandringham line has had a total of 11 operators since its opening in 1859. The line was initially operated by the Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company, the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company, the Melbourne Railway Company, and the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay Railway Company over the course of 19 years from 1859 till nationalisation in 1878. The majority of operations throughout its history have been government run: from 1878 until the 1999 privatisation of Melbourne's rail network, four different government operators have run the line.^[16] These operators, Victorian Railways, the Metropolitan Transit Authority, the Public Transport Corporation and Bayside Trains have a combined operational length of 121 years.^[16]

Bayside Trains was privatised in August 1999 and later rebranded M>Train. In 2002, M>Train was placed into receivership and the state government regained ownership of the line, with KPMG appointed as receivers to operate M>Train on behalf of the state government.^[17][18][19] Two years later, rival train operator Connex Melbourne took over the M>Train operations including the Sandringham line. Metro Trains Melbourne, the current private operator, then took over the operations in 2009. These private operators have had a combined operational period of 24 years.^[20]

*Operated part of the route

Route

Sandringham line
km Multiple lines via North Melbourne City Loop 1.2 Southern Cross ●●●●●●● 2.5 Flagstaff ●●●● 3.1 Melbourne Central 4.3 Parliament ●● 0.0 Flinders Street ●● 0.1 Princes Bridge (closed) Hurstbridge & Mernda lines to Jolimont City Loop 1.8 Botanic Gardens (dismantled) 2.3 Punt Road (Hoddle Highway) 2.6 Richmond ●●●●●●■ 2.7 Swan Street Alamein, Belgrave, Glen Waverley & Lilydale lines to Burnley 3.4 Cremorne (dismantled) 3.6 Cremorne Bridge CityLink Yarra River 4.2 South Yarra ●●●■ 4.3 Toorak Road (Burwood Highway) Bairnsdale/Traralgon, Cranbourne, Frankston & Pakenham lines to Caulfield 5.5 Prahran ■■■ 5.7 High Street St Kilda – Windsor line to St Kilda (dismantled) 6.3 Windsor ■■■ 6.5 Dandenong Road (Princes Highway) 7.9 Balaclava ■■ 8.6 Ripponlea ■ 8.7 Glen Eira Road 9.1 Hotham Street 9.7 Elsternwick ■ Rosstown Railway to Oakleigh (dismantled) 10.9 Nepean Highway 11.1 Gardenvale 11.4 North Road 12.0 North Brighton 13.3 Middle Brighton 13.9 New Street 14.7 Brighton Beach 14.9 South Road 15.5 New Street 16.5 Hampton 17.9 Sandringham km

The Sandringham line forms a somewhat linear route with minor curves from the Melbourne central business district to its terminus in Sandringham. The route is 17.9 kilometres (11.1 mi) long and is predominantly doubled tracked, however between Flinders Street station and Richmond, the track is widened to 12 tracks, narrowing to 6 tracks between Richmond and South Yarra before again narrowing to 2 tracks between South Yarra and Sandringham.^[21] After departing from its terminus at Flinders Street, the Sandringham line traverses mainly flat country with few curves and fairly minimal earthworks for most of the line. However, sections of the line have been elevated or lowering into a cutting to eliminate level crossings.^[5] Despite historical removals, there are numerous level crossings still present on the line with no current plans to remove them.^[22]

The line follows the same alignment as the Cranbourne, Pakenham, and Frankston lines with the four services splitting onto different routes at South Yarra. The Sandringham line continues on its south eastern alignment, whereas the Cranbourne, Pakenham, and Frankston lines takes an eastern alignment towards their final destinations.^[23] From Balaclava, the line is never more than ~2 kilometres (1.2 mi) from the eastern shore of Port Phillip. All of the rail line goes through built-up suburbs towards its terminus in Sandringham.^[23]

Stations

The line serves 14 stations across 17.9 kilometres (11.1 mi) of track. The stations are a mix of elevated, lowered, and ground level designs. The majority of stations are at ground level, with elevated or lowered stations constructed in conjunction with historical level crossing removals works.^[24]

Station	Accessibility	Opened	Terrain	Train connections	Other connections
Flinders Street	Yes—step free access	1854[4]	Lowered	16 connections  Alamein line   Belgrave line   Craigieburn line   Cranbourne line   Flemington Racecourse line   Frankston line   Gippsland line   Glen Waverley line   Hurstbridge line   Lilydale line   Mernda line   Pakenham line   Sunbury line   Upfield line   Werribee line   Williamstown line
Richmond	No—steep ramp	1859[4]	Elevated	8 connections  Alamein line   Belgrave line   Cranbourne line   Frankston line   Gippsland line   Glen Waverley line   Lilydale line   Pakenham line
South Yarra		1860[4]	Lowered	3 connections  Cranbourne line   Frankston line   Pakenham line
Prahran	Yes—step free access	1860[4]	Ground level
Windsor	No—steep ramp	1859[4]
Balaclava	Yes—step free access		Elevated
Ripponlea		1912[4]	Ground level
Elsternwick		1859[4]	Lowered
Gardenvale	No—steep ramp	1906[4]	Elevated
North Brighton	Yes—step free access	1859[4]	Ground level
Middle Brighton		1861[4]
Brighton Beach
Hampton		1887[4]
Sandringham

Rolling stock

Siemens Nexas trains are widely used across the Sandringham line.

The Sandringham line is operated by Siemens Nexas and Comeng electric multiple unit (EMU) trains operating in a two three-car configuration.

The Siemens Nexas EMUs contain two doors per side on each carriage and can accommodate up to 432 seated passengers in each six car configuration.^[26] The trains were originally built between 2002 and 2005 with a total of 72 three-car sets constructed.^[27] Comeng EMUs contain three doors per side on each carriage and can accommodate up to 556 seated passengers in each six-car configuration.^[28] These trains were originally built between 1981 and 1988 and were later refurbished by Alstom & EDi Rail between 2000 and 2003 and UGL Rail between 2017 and 2021. Since 2021, Comeng EMUs are progressively being retired as new rolling stock is introduced to the rail network.^[29]

Alongside the passenger trains, Sandringham line tracks and equipment are maintained by a fleet of engineering trains. The four types of engineering trains are: the shunting train; designed for moving trains along non-electrified corridors and for transporting other maintenance locomotives, for track evaluation; designed for evaluating track and its condition, the overhead inspection train; designed for overhead wiring inspection, and the infrastructure evaluation carriage designed for general infrastructure evaluation.^[30] Most of these trains are repurposed locomotives previously used by V/Line, Metro Trains, and the Southern Shorthaul Railroad.^[30]

Accessibility

In compliance with the Disability Discrimination Act of 1992, all stations that are new-built or rebuilt are fully accessible and comply with these guidelines.^[31] The majority of stations on the corridor are fully accessible, however, there are some stations that haven't been upgraded to meet these guidelines.^[32] These stations do feature ramps, however, they have a gradient greater than 1 in 14.^[32] Stations that are fully accessible feature ramps that have a gradient less than 1 in 14, have at-grade paths, or feature lifts.^[32] These stations typically also feature tactile boarding indicators, independent boarding ramps, wheelchair accessible myki barriers, hearing loops, and widened paths.^[32][33]

Individual upgrade projects designed around improving station accessibility have occurred in recent years, with works making significant strides in improving network accessibility, with more than 71% of Sandringham line stations classed as fully accessible.^[34]

Signalling

The Sandringham line uses three position signalling which is widely used across the Melbourne train network.^[35] Three position signalling was first introduced in 1915, with the final section of the line converted to the new type of signalling in 1926.^[36] The Sandringham line was the first line in Victoria to be equipped with this technology and was also the first (along with part of the Craigieburn line) to have a regular electric service.^[37]