Traces the history of Victoria's railways and the social history and development of traffic in metropolitan and regional areas.

Contents include:
1. Introduction: Victoria and the Railway Age
2. Marvellous Melbourne and its Early Railways, 1854-1878
3. Rails to the Goldfields
4. The Higinbotham Era: Coloured Lines. Light Lines and Borders Breached
5. Climax and Denouement: Victorian Railways in the 1880s and 1890s
6. The Twilight of the Developmental Railway: Victorian Railways from Federation to the 1920s
7. The End of Domination: The Clapp Era (1920-1939) and the Transformation of Traffic
8. Railways for a Changing City: Melbourne's Suburban System in the twentieth century
9. From War to Peace: Victoria and the Beginnings of National Railway Planning, 1939-1970
10. The Struggle for Relevance: The Country Railway transformed in the Motor Age, 1970-2004