[3][4][5] Organised by the Minister for Railways, Thomas Bent,[6] and passed on 12 December 1884, it became notorious for the large number of railway lines it authorised, and was dubbed the "Octopus Act".
It also provided for additional platforms, buildings, sidings, road approaches, drains, bridge widenings and modifications to existing infrastructure as necessary.
Section 7 also authorised expenditure on the following works: The task of implementing the act fell to Richard Speight, chief railway commissioner at the time,[8] a role created by the Victorian Railways Commissioners Act of 1883.
[9] Beneficiaries of the act included construction engineers such as Andrew O'Keefe, and politicians such as Thomas Bent himself, who reaped the rewards of commissioning construction in their own electorates.
[10] By 1892, amid the background of a worsening economic depression, outrage at the excesses of the construction boom, including a number of "white elephants", led to the sacking of Speight, as well as the other commissioners, Richard Ford and A.J.