The Gippsland line (also known as the Orbost railway line) is a railway line serving the Latrobe Valley and Gippsland regions of Victoria, Australia. It runs east from the state capital Melbourne through the cities of Moe, Morwell, Traralgon, Sale and terminating at Bairnsdale. Prior to its dismantling in 1994, the line extended to Orbost. The dismantled section now comprises the East Gippsland Rail Trail, a shared bicycle, walking, and horseriding track. Services Metro Trains Melbourne operates suburban passenger services along the inner section of the line as the Pakenham line, while V/Line services operate as the Traralgon and the Bairnsdale lines. Freight services also use the line, operated by Qube Holdings. History Rail lines were built to Gippsland in the 1870s and initially played a crucial role in developing agricultural industries in Gippsland as well as tourism. It also played a crucial role in the development of coal mining in the Latrobe Valley in the 1920s. At its peak, the railway travelled as far east as Orbost, and there are still frequent services to many of the towns. Some of the disused rail lines have been turned into tourist railways and/or rail trails. The Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company opened a line from Princes Bridge railway station to Punt Road (Richmond) and South Yarra in 1859, Prahran in 1859 and Windsor in 1860, connecting with the St Kilda and Brighton Railway Company line. This line was extended to Dandenong, Pakenham, Warragul, Moe, Morwell, Traralgon, Sale, Stratford and Bairnsdale between 1877 and 1879. It was extended to Orbost in 1916. The railway to Orbost opened in 1916 and operated until 1987, principally carrying timber and farming produce. In the early days of the railway's operation, dedicated passenger trains ran, but they had ceased by the 1930s. The track infrastructure was dismantled in 1994. The line traversed a mixture of farmland, hills and heavily forested country, and included numerous bridges, including the Stoney Creek trestle bridge, the largest of its kind in Victoria. In 1954, the line from Dandenong to Traralgon was electrified, mainly because of the expected briquette traffic from the brown coal mines in the Latrobe Valley. Over the next two years most of the line between Dandenong and Pakenham was duplicated and provided with power signalling, although the Narre Warren to Berwick section was not done until 1962. Over time, the rail transport of briquettes petered out as