This consisted of a large-scale sugar beet processing mill, a railway line to serve it, and a residential estate, named after Ross.

That proposal was rejected and Ross submitted a new one in 1876, this time with the railway to extend past the mill to Oakleigh, which had no rail connection to Melbourne.

At the time, a railway to Gippsland was being planned, and with many interested and influential parties involved, the proposal had been a lengthy political saga.

However, the M&HBUR wanted to charge an exorbitant fee for running rights over its tracks, and so eventually it was decided that the railway to Gippsland would link with a station to be built at Oakleigh.

In July of the same year, a group of members of the Victorian Legislative Assembly visited the sugar works and were impressed with the progress of construction.

Due to the dispute over the purchase of the M&HBUR by the State of Victoria, many more members of government, included Woods, had become wary of privately owned railways.

Ross had received permission to exclude the contentious Mordialloc line crossing, which was still missing, and so construction was technically completed within the set time.

An article in The Argus described the scene in 1884:[2] The work itself is remarkably incomplete, and displays a charming disregard of the ordinary requirements in railway construction.

For the greater part of the distance the permanent way consists of a slight earth formation laid on the natural surface of the ground, and in many places the top is so narrow that the sleepers project over the sides.

There is one good-sized cutting at the back of the Caulfield racecourse, from which about 10,000 square yards of material have been removed, and about a mile and a half from Elsternwick is the only "bank" worth speaking of.

For the whole length there are two wooden culverts and one drain, but no ditches or gutters to preserve the earthwork from the destruction now progressing through the accumulation of large quantities of water.

If the line were to be made use of, everything but the earth and the gates would have to be removed, and then a very large expenditure would be necessary to make the work suitable or the reception of new sleepers and rails.

Construction and ballast trains were often on the line in the late 1880s and early 1890s, hauled by Victorian Railways locomotives that had been hired by Ross.

Ross still hoped to complete his Rosstown Project, even though the mill had been sitting dormant for many years, full of equipment that had never been used, minus a few losses to burglary in 1889.

In 1911 the Gardenvale and East Elsternwick Progress Association approached the National Bank and negotiated a price in the hope of re-opening the line, with the support of the City of Caulfield.

The Caulfield Council was among the purchasers, turning some of the railway reserve into roads, and what is now Ormond Park, as well as the site of a rubbish tip and incinerator.

The Glen Eira Council now manages and promotes the Rosstown Railway Heritage Trail as a bicycle route and historical walk.