The tramway was owned by the sawmill at Powelltown and its primary role was to move sawn timber from the mill to the main railway system.
Although the forest railways to Beech Forest, Gembrook and Walhalla were built with a 762 mm (2 ft 6 in) gauge, existing horse-drawn railways with wooden rails in the Powelltown area used a 3 ft (914 mm) gauge, so the decision was made to conform with that, meaning that timber on long timber trucks could be transported without transhipment.
The construction of the 3- and 5-ton trucks was similar to that of those in Western Australia which, however, had a track gauge of 1,067 mm (3 ft 6 in).
Around 30 giant eucalyptus trees, containing around 30,000 super feet (70 cubic metres) of timber, were felled and sawn each day.
[9] Two piles of sawdust, an old winch, and a steam boiler are all that is left to pinpoint the locations of the former bush mills along this section.