University of Tasmania
The University of Tasmania is a public research university located in Tasmania, Australia. Founded in 1890, it was the fourth university to be established in Australia. Christ College, one of the university's residential colleges, was founded in 1846 and is the oldest tertiary institution in the country; the University of Tasmania is a sandstone university and is a member of the international Association of Commonwealth Universities and the Association of Southeast Asian Institutions of Higher Learning. The university offers various undergraduate and graduate programs in a range of disciplines, has links with 20 specialist research institutes, cooperative research centres and faculty based research centres; the university's Institute for Marine and Antarctic Studies have contributed to the university's multiple 5 rating scores for excellence in research awarded by the Australian Research Council. The University delivers tertiary education at the Australian Maritime College, the national centre for maritime education and research.
The university is regarded for its commitment to excellence in teaching. It was ranked in the top 10 research universities in Australia and in the top two per cent of universities worldwide in the Academic Ranking of World Universities; the University of Tasmania was established on 1 January 1890, after the abolition of overseas scholarships freed up funds. It took over the role of the Tasmanian Council for Education. Richard Deodatus Poulett Harris, who had long advocated for the establishment of the university, became its first warden of the senate; the first degrees to graduates admitted ad eundem gradum and diplomas were awarded in June 1890. The university was offered an ornate sandstone building on the Queens Domain in Hobart the High School of Hobart, though it was leased by others until mid-1892; this became known as University House. Three lecturers began teaching 11 students from 22 March 1893, once University House had been renovated. Parliamentarians branding it an unnecessary luxury made the university's early existence precarious.
The institution's encouragement of female students fuelled criticism. James Backhouse Walker, a local lawyer and Vice-Chancellor, mounted a courageous defence. By the First World War there were over 100 students, several Tasmanian graduates were influential in law and politics. According to Chancellor Sir John Morris, from 1918 until 1939 the institution still'limped along'. Distinguished staff had been appointed, such as historian William Jethro Brown and mathematicians Alexander McAulay and his son Alexander Leicester McAulay, classicist RL Dunbabin, philosopher and polymath Edmund Morris Miller. Housed in the former Hobart High School, facilities were outgrown, but the state government was slow to fund a new campus. In 1914 the university petitioned King George V for Letters Patent; the Letters Patent, sometimes called the Royal Charter, granted the university's degrees status as equivalent to the established universities of the United Kingdom, where such equivalents existed. During the Second World War, while the Optical Munitions Annexe assisted the war effort, local graduates, replacing soldier academics, taught a handful of students.
New post-war staff, many with overseas experience, pressed for removal to adequate facilities at Sandy Bay on an old rifle range. Chancellor Sir John Morris Chief Justice, though a dynamic reformer, antagonised academics by his authoritarianism. Vice-Chancellor Torliev Hytten, an eminent economist, saw contention peak while the move to Sandy Bay was delayed. In a passionate open letter to the premier, Philosophy Professor Sydney Orr goaded the government into establishing the 1955 Royal Commission into the university; the commission's report demanded extensive reform of governing council. Staff were delighted. On 10 May 1949, the university awarded its first Doctor of Philosophy to Joan Munro Ford. Ford worked as a research biologist in the University of Tasmania's Department of Physics between 1940 and 1950. In early 1956 Orr was summarily dismissed for his alleged though denied seduction of a student. A ten-year battle involved academics in Australia and overseas. Orr lost an unfair dismissal action in the Supreme Court of Tasmania and the High Court of Australia.
The Tasmanian Chair of Philosophy was boycotted. In 1966 Orr received some financial compensation from the University, which established a cast-iron tenure system; the latter disappeared with the federal reorganisation of higher education in the late 1980s. In the early 1960s The University of Tasmania at last transferred to a purpose-built new campus at Sandy Bay, though many departments were housed in ex-World War II wooden huts, it profited from increasing federal finance following the 1957 Murray Report. Medical and Agricultural Schools were established and the sciences obtained adequate laboratories. Physics achieved world recognition in astronomy, while other departments attracted good scholars and graduates were celebrated in many fields. Student facilities improved remarkably; the 1965 Martin Report established a traditional role for universities, a more practical role for colleges of advanced education. The Tasmanian Government duly created the Tasmanian College of Advanced Education in 1966 sited on Mount Nelson above the university.
It incorporated The School of Art, the Conservatorium of Music and the Hobart Teachers College. In 1971, a Launceston campus of the TCAE was announced; these were fateful de
Sunshine duration
Sunshine duration or sunshine hours is a climatological indicator, measuring duration of sunshine in given period for a given location on Earth expressed as an averaged value over several years. It is a general indicator of cloudiness of a location, thus differs from insolation, which measures the total energy delivered by sunlight over a given period. Sunshine duration is expressed in hours per year, or in hours per day; the first measure indicates the general sunniness of a location compared with other places, while the latter allows for comparison of sunshine in various seasons in the same location. Another often-used measure is percentage ratio of recorded bright sunshine duration and daylight duration in the observed period. An important use of sunshine duration data is to characterize the climate of sites of health resorts; this takes into account the psychological effect of strong solar light on human well-being. It is used to promote tourist destinations. If the Sun were to be above the horizon 50% of the time for a standard year consisting of 8,760 hours, apparent maximal daytime duration would be 4,380 hours for any point on Earth.
However, there are physical and astronomical effects. Namely, atmospheric refraction allows the Sun to be still visible when it physically sets below the horizon. For that reason, average daytime is longest in polar areas, where the apparent Sun spends the most time around the horizon. Places on the Arctic Circle have the longest total annual daytime, 4,647 hours, while the North Pole receives 4,575; because of elliptic nature of the Earth's orbit, the Southern Hemisphere is not symmetrical: the Antarctic Circle, with 4,530 hours of daylight, receives five days less of sunshine than its antipodes. The Equator has a total daytime of 4,422 hours per year. Given the theoretical maximum of daytime duration for a given location, there is a practical consideration at which point the amount of daylight is sufficient to be treated as a "sunshine hour". "Bright" sunshine hours represent the total hours when the sunlight is stronger than a specified threshold, as opposed to just "visible" hours. "Visible" sunshine, for example, occurs around sunrise and sunset, but is not strong enough to excite the sensor.
Measurement is performed by instruments called sunshine recorders. For the specific purpose of sunshine duration recording, Campbell–Stokes recorders are used, which use a spherical glass lens to focus the sun rays on a specially designed tape; when the intensity exceeds a pre-determined threshold, the tape burns. The total length of the burn trace is proportional to the number of bright hours. Another type of recorder is the Jordan sunshine recorder. Newer, electronic recorders have more stable sensitivity than that of the paper tape. In order to harmonize the data measured worldwide, in 1962 the World Meteorological Organization defined a standardized design of the Campbell–Stokes recorder, called an Interim Reference Sunshine Recorder. In 2003, the sunshine duration was defined as the period during which direct solar irradiance exceeds a threshold value of 120 W/m². Sunshine duration follows a general geographic pattern: subtropical latitudes have the highest sunshine values, because these are the locations of the eastern sides of the subtropical high pressure systems, associated with the large-scale descent of air from the upper-level tropopause.
Many of the world's driest climates are found adjacent to the eastern sides of the subtropical highs, which create stable atmospheric conditions, little convective overturning, little moisture and cloud cover. Desert regions, with nearly constant high pressure aloft and rare condensation—like North Africa, the Southwestern United States, Western Australia, the Middle East—are examples of hot, dry climates where sunshine duration values are high; the two major areas with the highest sunshine duration, measured as annual average, are the central and the eastern Sahara Desert—covering vast desert countries such as Egypt, Libya and Niger—and the Southwestern United States. The city claiming the official title of the sunniest in the world is Yuma, with over 4,000 hours of bright sunshine annually, but many climatological books suggest there may be sunnier areas in North Africa. In the belt encompassing northern Chad and the Tibesti Mountains, northern Sudan, southern Libya, Upper Egypt, annual sunshine duration is estimated at over 4,000 hours.
There is a smaller, isolated area of sunshine maximum in the heart of the western section of the Sahara Desert around the Eglab Massif and the Erg Chech, along the borders of Algeria and Mali where the 4,000-hour mark is exceeded, too. Some places in the interior of the Arabian Peninsula receive 3,600–3,800 hours of bright sunshine annually; the largest sun-baked region in the world is North Africa. The sunniest month in the world is December in Eastern Antarctica, with 23 hours of bright sun daily. Conversely, higher latitudes lying in stormy westerlies have much cloudier and more unstable and rainy weather, have the lowest values of sunshine duration annually. Temperate oceanic climates like those in northwestern Europe, the western coast of Canada, areas of New Zealand's South Island are examples of cool, wet, humid climates where cloudless sunshine duration values are low; the areas with the lowest sunshine duration annually lie over the polar oceans, as well as parts of northern Europe, southern Alaska, northern Russia, areas near the Sea of
Postcodes in Australia
Postcodes are used in Australia to more efficiently sort and route mail within the Australian postal system. Postcodes in Australia are placed at the end of the Australian address. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department and are now managed by Australia Post, are published in booklets available from post offices or online from the Australia Post website. Australian envelopes and postcards have four square boxes printed in orange at the bottom right for the postcode; these are used. Postcodes were introduced in Australia in 1967 by the Postmaster-General's Department to replace earlier postal sorting systems, such as Melbourne's letter and number codes and a similar system used in rural and regional New South Wales; the introduction of the postcodes coincided with the introduction of a large-scale mechanical mail sorting system in Australia, starting with the Sydney GPO. By 1968, 75% of mail was using postcodes, in the same year post office preferred-size envelopes were introduced, which came to be referred to as “standard envelopes”.
Postcode squares were introduced in June 1990 to enable Australia Post to use optical character recognition software in its mail sorting machines to automatically and more sort mail by postcodes. Australian postcodes consist of four digits, are written after the name of the city, suburb, or town, the state or territory: Mr John Smith 100 Flushcombe Road BLACKTOWN NSW 2148When writing an address by hand, a row of four boxes is pre-printed on the lower right hand corner of an envelope, the postcode may be written in the boxes. If addressing a letter from outside Australia, the postcode is recorded before'Australia'. Australian postcodes are sorting information, they are linked with one area. Due to post code rationalisation, they can be quite complex in country areas; the south-western Victoria 3221 postcode of the Geelong Mail Centre includes twenty places around Geelong with few people. This means that mail for these places is not sorted until it gets to Geelong; some postcodes cover large populations, while other postcodes have much smaller populations in urban areas.
Australian postcodes range from 0200 for the Australian National University to 9944 for Cannonvale, Queensland. Some towns and suburbs have two postcodes — one for street deliveries and another for post office boxes. For example, a street address in the Sydney suburb of Parramatta would be written like this: Mr John Smith 99 George Street PARRAMATTA NSW 2150But mail sent to a PO Box in Parramatta would be addressed: Mr John Smith PO Box 99 PARRAMATTA NSW 2124Many large businesses, government departments and other institutions receiving high volumes of mail had their own postcode as a Large Volume Receiver, e.g. the Royal Brisbane and Women's Hospital has the postcode 4029, the Australian National University had the postcode 0200. More postcode ranges were made available for LVRs in the 1990s. Australia Post has been progressively discontinuing the LVR programme since 2006; the first one or two numbers show the state or territory that the postcode belongs to Sometimes near the state and territory borders, Australia Post finds it easier to send mail through a nearby post office, across the border: Some of the postcodes above may cover two or more states.
For example, postcode 2620 covers both a locality in NSW as well as a locality in the ACT, postcode 0872 covers a number of localities across WA, SA, NT and QLD. Three locations straddle the NSW-Queensland border. Jervis Bay Territory, once an exclave of the ACT but now a separate territory, is geographically located on the coast of NSW, it is just south of the towns of Huskisson, with which it shares a postcode. Mail to the Jervis Bay Territory is still addressed to the ACT; the numbers used to show the state on each radio callsign in Australia are the same number as the first number for postcodes in that state, e.g. 2xx in New South Wales, 3xx in Victoria, etc. Radio callsigns pre-date postcodes in Australia by more than forty years. Australia's external territories are included in Australia Post's postcode system. While these territories do not belong to any state, they are addressed as such for mail sorting: Three scientific bases in Antarctica operated by the Australian National Antarctic Research Expeditions share a postcode with the isolated sub-Antarctic island of Macquarie Island: Each state's capital city ends with three zeroes, while territorial capital cities end with two zeroes.
Capital city postcodes were the lowest postcodes in their state or territory range, before new ranges for LVRs and PO Boxes were made available. The last number can be changed from "0" to "1" to get the postcode for General Post Office boxes in any capital city: While the first number of a postcode shows the state or territory, the second number shows a region within the state. However, postcodes with the same second number are not always next to each other; as an example, postcodes in the range 2200–2299 are split between the southern suburbs of Sydney and the Central Coast of New South Wales. Postcodes with a second number of "0" or "1" are always located within the metropolitan area of the state's capital city. Postcodes with higher secon
Bureau of Meteorology
The Bureau of Meteorology is an Executive Agency of the Australian Government responsible for providing weather services to Australia and surrounding areas. It was established in 1906 under the Meteorology Act, brought together the state meteorological services that existed before then; the states transferred their weather recording responsibilities to the Bureau of Meteorology on 1 January 1908. The Bureau of Meteorology is the main provider of weather forecasts and observations to the Australian public; the Bureau distributes weather images via radiofax and is responsible for issuing flood alerts in Australia. The Bureau's head office is in Melbourne Docklands, which includes the Bureau's Research Centre, the Bureau National Operations Centre, the National Climate Centre, the Victorian Regional Forecasting Centre as well as the Hydrology and Satellite sections. Regional offices are located in each territory capital; each regional office includes a Regional Forecasting Centre and a Flood Warning Centre, the Perth and Brisbane offices house Tropical Cyclone Warning Centres.
The Adelaide office incorporates the National Tidal Centre, while the Darwin office the Volcanic Ash Advisory Centre and Regional Specialised Meteorological Centre. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issues Tropical Cyclone Advices and developed the Standard Emergency Warning Signal used for warnings; the Bureau is responsible for tropical cyclone naming for storms in waters surrounding Australia. Three lists of names used to be maintained, one for each of the western and eastern Australian regions. However, as of the start of the 2008–09 Tropical Cyclone Year these lists have been rolled into one main national list of tropical cyclone names; the regional offices are supported by the Bureau National Operations Centre, located at the head office in Melbourne Docklands. The Bureau maintains a network of field offices across the continent, on neighbouring islands and in Antarctica. There is a network of some 500 paid co-operative observers and 6,000 voluntary rainfall observers; the following people have been directors of the Bureau of Meteorology: In the head office a Cray XC40 supercomputer called "Australis" provides the operational computing capability for weather, climate and wave numerical prediction and simulation, while other Unix servers support the computer message switching system and real-time data base.
The Australian Integrated Forecast System affords the main computing infrastructure in the regional offices. Numerical weather prediction is performed using the Unified Model software; the Bureau of Meteorology announced the Cray contract in July 2015, commissioned the Cray XC40 supercomputer on 30 June 2016 and decommissioned their Oracle HPC system in October 2016. World Meteorological Organization, co-ordination body for weather and environment services Weatherzone, another Australian weather service provider International Cloud Experiment, which collected data on tropical cyclones in January and February 2006 2018–19 Australian region cyclone season Water Data Transfer Format Australasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council Bureau of Meteorology main page Federation and Meteorology: the history of meteorology in Australia
Metro Tasmania
Metro Tasmania called Metro, a Tasmanian Government business enterprise, is the largest bus operator in the state of Tasmania, with operations in three of the four largest urban centres of Hobart and Burnie. Urban services in Devonport are provided by a private operator, Merseylink Coaches, although Metro does operate a route via Devonport which links the Mersey Community Hospital in Latrobe with the North-West Regional Hospital in Burnie. Services are provided by Metro under a range of urban and non-urban contracts with the Transport Commission, a division within the Department of State Growth; the history of Metro Tasmania dates back to 1893, when the Hobart Electric Tramway Company was founded by a London consortium. The HETCo was one of the earliest such operators in the world, was the first electric tramway in the Southern Hemisphere; the company operated two Dennis motorbuses prior to being taken over in 1913 by the Hobart City Council, who renamed it to Hobart Municipal Tramways. In 1935, HMT began to use trolleybuses on some networks to replace trams, petrol buses were introduced on some networks in the 1940s to alleviate congestion.
In 1955, a statutory authority called the Metropolitan Transport Trust was formed, this entity amalgamated the operations of the Hobart Municipal Tramways and Launceston Municipal Transport, operated by the Launceston City Council as Launceston Municipal Tramways between 1911 and 1953. The Hobart Municipal Tramways were taken over by the Trust on 1 March 1955, followed by Launceston on 1 July. At its commencement, the MTT operated trams, trolley and diesel buses, was authorised to provide public transport services within a radius of seven miles of the Hobart and Launceston General Post Offices. In 1960, MTT acquired the operations of Norton Coaches, which provided bus services in the Burnie area; this resulted in the MTT operating transport services in the South and North-West regions of Tasmania. 1960 saw the closure of the last of Hobart's tram routes, while in 1968 electric traction was removed altogether from Tasmania's streets when the trolleybuses were retired from both Hobart and Launceston.
The MTT began using Metro as its operating name during the late 1980's when the Trust was a division of the Department of Transport. The Metropolitan Transport Trust was dissolved when Metro Tasmania Pty Ltd became a state-owned company in February 1998. Metro Tasmania has two shareholders, by law; the Treasurer is one shareholder, while the other holds its equivalent. The government appoints directors to the Board of Metro Tasmania, who in turn appoint the Chief Executive Officer. In May 1999, Metro purchased Hobart Coaches which operated services to New Norfolk, Blackmans Bay and the Channel areas of Hobart. Hobart Coaches was retained as the brand name of the regional division of Metro operating with separate drivers and buses at separate yards, however both the workforce and the fleet were absorbed into the main operation. Services to Kingston and Blackmans Bay became part of Metro's Hobart urban network, with Channel services operated under a separate non-urban contract. Contracts held by Metro to provide services to New Norfolk and Bothwell are now operated by O'Driscoll Coaches, while Richmond services are operated by Tassielink Transit.
As at July 2018, Metro Tasmania employed 481 people statewide. 8.29 million first boardings were recorded in the 2017/18 financial year, an increase of 1.7% from 2016/17. In Hobart, Metro's network extends from Cygnet in the southern Channel region, north to Brighton and east to Seven Mile Beach and Opossum Bay with major interchanges in the Hobart and Rosny Park CBD's and smaller transfer points at Kingston, Howrah Shoreline, Metro Springfield and Bridgewater. Two high-frequency corridors, branded as Turn Up and Go operate between Glenorchy and Hobart via Main Road, New Town Road and Elizabeth Street, between Howrah Shoreline and Hobart via Clarence Street and Rosny Park. On these corridors a service is scheduled to depart every 10 minutes or better in each direction between 7am and 7pm on weekdays. Hobart's routes are numbered according to their geographical area: Routes for destinations south of Hobart City are numbered in the 4-- series. Routes for destinations north of Hobart City are numbered in the 5-- series.
Routes for destinations east of Hobart City are numbered in the 6-- series. For express variants of routes, the first digit is replaced with an X. School bus routes on the western side of the River Derwent are numbered in the 2-- series, on the east in the 3-- series. For morning services the third digit is odd, in the afternoon. Cross-town routes that either bypass Hobart City or travel through the CBD without terminating are Routes 500, 501, 601, 605, 694 and 696. In Launceston, the Metro network is bounded by the suburbs of Youngtown, St Leonards, Rocherlea, North Riverside, Blackstone Heights and Hadspen; the major interchange is located in St John Street in the Launceston CBD. One high-frequency Turn Up and Go corridor is operated between the University and the City via Invermay Road. Launceston's routes are divided into five geographical sub-sections: North Routes 6 to 10. East (Ravenswo
Wynyard, Tasmania
Wynyard is a rural town on the north-west coast of Tasmania, about 17 kilometres west of Burnie. At the 2011 census Wynyard had an urban population of 5,061 and a total greater area population of 5,990; the town is a regional hub servicing the surrounding rural areas, the adjacent Burnie Wynyard Airport provides commercial flights to Melbourne and other districts. The main council offices for the Waratah-Wynyard local government area are located in Wynyard. Three ex-convict Alexander brothers established a settlement, Alexandria, on the west, or Table Cape, side of the Inglis River in the 1850s, they bought large areas of farmland on Table Cape and built several small ships for produce and timber trading. Shortly afterwards, Wynyard town, on the east side of the river, was laid out, but lagged well behind Alexandria which had a church and several shops including a blacksmith and general store. After the Inglis River was bridged in 1861, Alexandria began to fade and Wynyard, with better wharfing, became the district's centre of commerce.
Wynyard was named after Major-General Edward Buckley Wynyard in the early 1850s. Table Cape Post Office opened around 1856 and was renamed Wynyard in 1882. Wynyard handled more shipping than Burnie in the late nineteenth century and its population reached 500 by 1900. However, in the 20th century Burnie flourished and become the dominant regional and industrial hub for the region. Coast FM is a volunteer community radio station servicing the North-West coast of Tasmania, with the studio based in Wynyard; the Wynyard Yacht Club was established in 1961 and is situated near the mouth of the Inglis River, the club has received national recognition for its inclusiveness programs. The Wonders of Wynyard visitor information centre hosts a substantial classic vintage cars collection, donated to the Waratah-Wynyard Council by the collector and restorer, Francis Ransley. There are two government funded public schools in Wynyard, including Table Cape Primary School and Wynyard High School. There is a catholic primary school, St Brigid's, adjacent to the catholic church of the same name.
Wynyard Primary School and Inglis Primary School existed separately. Both were renamed to Table Cape Primary School in 1998; the two school campuses were merged in 2009, with the closing of the Bowick Street campus. Freestone Cove is a small sheltered bay on the northern fringes of Wynyard, towards Table Cape. Fossil bluff is a small protrusion of sandstone cliffs rising about 30 metres from the coastline at Freestone Cove. In the 19th century, it was the discovery site of Australia's oldest fossil marsupial, Wynyardia bassiana, an extinct possum-like animal from the early Miocene. Recovered was an extinct genus of whale, Prosqualodon, it is believed the Aboriginal Tommeginer clan built tidal fish traps with rocks at Freestone Cove, the rocks are still evident today and are protected under the Aboriginal Relics Act. The Tommeginer tribe lived in the region along the coastline around Wynyard and Table Cape until soon after the arrival of Europeans in the 19th century. A considerable number of tidal fish traps have been found in the north-west of the state.
The phenomena is attributed to the mean tidal range of two metres along this stretch of coastline, ideal for this type of construction. Whilst some of these traps were built by Europeans, there is good reason to believe others were of Aboriginal construction, such as at Freestone Cove. Three other traps located at nearby Rocky Cape, Sisters Beach and Boat Harbour do not have established European origins, all are located within the territory, occupied by the Tommeginer tribe. Tidal fish traps must be located close to camps so that they can be monitored; because as the tide ebbs, any fish caught in the shallows fall easy prey to scavenging seabirds. The Freestone Cove traps are located a considerable distance from the nearest early European settlement of Alexandria, but were close to known Aboriginal campsites and several middens have been located along the shoreline nearby. Wynyard is located around the mouth of the Inglis River, which extends 61 kilometres to the Campbell Ranges near Takone.
Table Cape is a volcanic plug located about 4 kilometres north of Wynyard, the northern and eastern faces of the geological feature rise steeply from Bass Strait to a height of 170 metres above sea level. The area is renowned for the annual flowering of tulips during spring and accompanying tulip festival. Situated on the edge of Table Cape is the heritage-listed Table Cape Lighthouse which remains in operation today; the lighthouse has a maximum nautical range of 16 nautical miles. F. M. Alexander the creator of the Alexander technique was born on the northern bank of the Inglis River at a settlement called Alexandria, situated about three km upstream from the river mouth, he moved to Waratah, Melbourne and New York to pursue acting and teaching. Carla Boyd is a retired Australian women's basketball player, born in Wynyard. Boyd Competed at the 1996 and 2000 Olympic Games, the 1998 World Championship, winning medals at all three events
Melba Line
The Melba Line is a 1,067 mm narrow-gauge railway on the West Coast of Tasmania. The line was constructed as a private railway line named the Emu Bay Railway and was one of the longest-lasting and most successful private railway companies in Australia. While at present the line travels from Burnie to Melba Flats, it ran through to Zeehan carrying minerals and passengers as an essential service for the West Coast community. In the 1870s, the Van Diemen's Land Company engaged John C. Climie to undertake a survey of a line from near Burnie to Mount Bischoff. On 1 February 1878 a 71 kilometres, horse drawn wooden tramway opened from Emu Bay to Rouse’s Camp, near Waratah to serve the Mount Bischoff tin mines. In 1887, the line was taken over by the Emu Bay to Mount Bischoff Railway Company and relaid with steel rails as 1,067 mm gauge railway line to allow steam locomotives to operate. In 1897 the Emu Bay Railway Company took over the line, extending it 60 kilometres to Zeehan on 21 December 1900.
Following the opening of the Murchison Highway, the line was closed between Rosebery and Zeehan in August 1965. After being sold in 1967 to EZ Industries, the line was upgraded to carry heavier trains and in January 1970 reopened from Rosebery to Melba Flats. During the construction of the Pieman River hydro electric scheme in the late 1970s the line was diverted in places and new bridges were built; the Melba Line was included in the October 1984 sale of EZ Industries to North Broken Hill Peko, which in 1988 merged with CRA Limited to form Pasminco. In 1989 an 11 kilometre branch opened from Moorey Junction to serve Aberfoyle’s Hellyer Mine. On 22 May 1998, the line was sold by Pasminco to the Australian Transport Network and integrated into its Tasrail business. In February 2004 it was included in the sale of Tasrail to Pacific National and in September 2009 to the government owned TasRail. At its peak as a steam operation the railway had 23 stopping or named places on its line and adjacent lines: Burnie Pigeon Hill Ridgley Highclere Hampshire Ringwood Toronna Wey River Bridge Guildford - junction to the Mount Bischoff tin mine Rouse's Camp Magnet Junction Waratah Mount Magnet Muddy Creek Bulgobac Boko Farrell Junction with the North Mount Farrell Tramway to Tullah, now known as the Wee Georgie Wood Railway Primrose Barkers Crossing Rosebery Renison Bell Argent Tunnel Melba Flats Junction with the North East Dundas Tramway to Montezuma and Williamsford on the southern slopes of Mount Read Rayna Junction - junction with the Maestris or Mount Dundas – Zeehan Railway ZeehanBeyond Zeehan the Tasmanian Government Railways line continued to Regatta Point to connect with the Mount Lyell line to Queenstown.
Railways on the West Coast of Tasmania Along the Line in Tasmania. Book 2. Private Lines. Traction Publications. 1972. ISBN 0-85829-003-0. Atkinson, H. K.. Railway Tickets of Tasmania. ISBN 0-9598718-7-X. Blainey, Geoffrey; the Peaks of Lyell. Hobart: St. David's Park Publishing. ISBN 0-7246-2265-9. Lou Rae; the Emu Bay Railway. ISBN 0-9592098-6-7. Manny, L. B; the Emu Bay Railway Australian Railway Historical Society Bulletin, November 1961
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