to Port Melbourne in 1854. The Melbourne & Suburban Railway Company's line from Princes Bridge to Punt Road (Richmond) opened in 1859. In the same year the Geelong and Melbourne Railway Company opened its line from Melbourne to Geelong. Subsequently the Victorian Railways built new railways to connect farming and mining communities to the ports of Melbourne, Geelong and Portland. In 1862 lines reached the great gold rush towns of Bendigo and Ballarat. In 1864 a line was opened to the Murray River port of Echuca. In 1883 the first connection with another State's rail system was made when the North East line was completed to the New South Wales Government Railways station at Albury, requiring a break-of-gauge to New South Wales' standard gauge Main Southern line. In 1887, Victorian Railways met South Australian Railways at Serviceton, although both systems used broad gauge. In 1919, electrification and development of the Melbourne suburban lines commenced. Minor extensions to suburban lines have continued, but patronage fell as road transport gained favour from the 1960s. In recent years, patronage has risen substantially, with more than 200 million trips on the network in 2007–2008. In 1981, Melbourne's only underground railway, the City Loop was opened. On the country network, a large number of uneconomic branch line railways have been closed since the 1950s, leaving a skeleton network by the time of the Lonie Report of 1980. Privatisation of the Victorian railway network was carried out by the Kennett Government in the 1990s, with freight, suburban and country rail services split into separate companies. This was later followed by the Regional Fast Rail project that saw track upgrades, new trains, and an improved timetable to major regional cities. Queensland The first line opened in 1865 from Ipswich to Grandchester, a temporary terminus in the foothills of the Darling Downs. It was built to narrow gauge in order to reduce costs through the steep escarpment. This was subsequently applied to all the railways built in Queensland, except for the Sydney–Brisbane line and the Weipa mining railway, both built in the 20th century. This was the first railway in the world, but the gauge subsequently spread to Western Australia, South Australia, Tasmania, New Zealand, Japan, Indonesia and several African countries. The line was extended from Grandchester to Toowoomba at the top of a steep climb in 1867 and was connected from Ipswich to Brisbane in 1875. From