eastern side through Hyde Park to minimise the costly land resumptions necessary. The Royal Commission recommended the adoption of a proposal by the Chief Railway Commissioner, Mr Eddy, for a line along the eastern city edge to a terminus in Hyde Park. Public opinion was, however, against the loss of a large portion of Hyde Park for railway purposes and eventually the Royal Commission recommended the adoption of an alternative proposal from Mr Eddy which would see a central city station at King Street and branch lines splitting east and north. No further action was taken until April 1896 when the Premier was forced "in the interest of the safety and comfort of the travelling public' to appoint a second Royal Commission to investigate and report on a suitable route. Inquiries and reports continued over the next few years and, while the Government did authorise the construction of Central station in 1900, agreement on a city railway service could not be achieved. Public opposition to the loss of Hyde Park land and the large capital outlay required were two major hurdles to settlement. In 1908 a "Royal Commission on Improvement of the City of Sydney and its Suburbs" was appointed and recommended a plan for a loop railway proceeding down York Street to Circular Quay and returning to Central station via Macquarie Street and Hyde Park. Six underground stations were to be located generally in the positions of the Central, Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay, St James and Museum stations of today. Developments by John Bradfield In 1912 the Government commissioned the engineering firm of Mott and Hay who recommended an amended variation of the 1908 scheme with lines to the eastern and western suburbs. The scheme was not adopted being judged expensive, inefficient and impractical on numerous counts. In February 1915 the Chief Engineer of Metropolitan Railway Construction, John Bradfield, after studying the city railways of Europe and North America, submitted his "Report on the Proposed Electric Railways for the City of Sydney". Bradfield's farsighted plan proposed an electric underground city railway loop, viaduct crossings and tunnels out of the city, a Harbour Bridge Crossing and connections from the city network to two lines progressing north to Hornsby and to Narrabeen/Pittwater, a loop line through stations at King Cross, Paddington, Edgecliff, Bondi, Waverley, Coogee, Waterloo to Erskenville, a western loop to a Balmain station via a bridge from to