About the Outer Circle Line
The Outer Circle was built during the Melbourne land boom of the 1880s. Money was no object, and greedy capitalists saw the Colony of Victoria as a valuable investment opportunity.
It was originally intended to bring goods trains into Melbourne from Gippsland. But after the State Government purchased the Melbourne & Hobson's Bay United Railway Company there was no longer a need to build the Outer Circle.
Almost no-one lived along the proposed route of the railway; it was built through open bushland, paddocks and orchards, connecting Oakleigh with Fairfield.
Its name was orignally coined in 1873 by the Engineer-In-Chief of the Victorian Railways, Thomas Higinbotham, who said:
The railway from Oakleigh could be brought into Melbourne via an 'outer circle' route.