Railway electrification in Australia

Electrification of Australian railways began with the Melbourne and Sydney suburban lines. Melbourne suburban lines were electrified from 1919 using 1,500 V DC. Sydney suburban lines were electrified from 1926 using the same system.

Later Australian systems used 25 kV 50 Hz AC electrification, which had been introduced in the 1950s in France, and by the 1980s become the international standard. Hence they differed from earlier systems, although as each suburban system is centred on the main city and are not interconnected, this would not cause problems.^[1] Later suburban systems were Brisbane from 1979, Perth from 1992 and Adelaide from 2014. There has also been extensive non-urban electrification in Queensland using 25 kV 50 Hz AC, mainly during the 1980s for coal routes.