Why Is the Alamein Line So Short and So Neglected?
Every Melbourne train nerd has a soft spot for the Alamein line. It's short, it's a little weird, and it has this slightly forlorn energy — like that one colleague who keeps getting passed over for promotion despite clearly being capable. Riding it feels a bit like discovering a hidden level in a video game. You board at Flinders Street, blink, and somehow you're in quiet leafy suburbia and the train has run out of track. But here's the thing: the Alamein line's smallness isn't an accident. It's not a quirk. It's the result of over a century of bad luck, cancelled plans, political indifference and infrastructure decisions that made sense at the time and look absolutely baffling now. Let me explain.
