3.3 Frankston and the Outside World

Railway

For much of its nineteenth-century history Frankston remained relatively isolated from Melbourne. Occasional steamers called in at the pier but for the most part the only direct contact with Melbourne was along the sandy track which followed the curve of Port Phillip Bay to Brighton and the city's road network.

The arrival of the railway in 1882 brought Frankston into the orbit of the city. However as with other townships at a similar distance from the city, Frankston was always treated as a country rather than suburban location and the rail service remained minimal. During the 1880s there were attempts to improve the number of trains to allow for holiday traffic. But even these seemed to attract few passengers. In 1888 a survey over six months counted only two and a half thousand tickets purchased to Frankston from other stations on a Sunday.

Frankston station itself sold only 500 Sunday tickets.1 The real impact on the railway came much later once the line was electrified between the wars and then when Frankston was included in the suburban system after the Second World War. The railway, despite the few travellers of the later 1880s, did become a major force in turning Frankston into a tourist destination for ordinary city-dwellers. It became a major focal point for the Frankston shopping centre orienting commerce away from the waterfront.

Frankston was an important transfer point for many buses leading south and west into the Mornington Peninsula towns and towards Western Port. And after the Second World War it played a part in attracting suburban development. By then however it had to compete with motor transport.