reason disappeared with the building of a direct link via South Yarra before the line had even opened. The line saw little traffic as it traversed empty paddocks, and with no through traffic, the Outer Circle was closed in sections between 1893 and 1897. The Camberwell to Ashburton stretch of the Outer Circle re-opened in 1899, then in 1900, part of the northern section of the Outer Circle reopened as a shuttle service between East Camberwell and Deepdene station. This line closed in 1927. At the same time as the Outer Circle, a railway was opened from Burnley to Darling and a junction with the Outer Circle at Waverley Road (near the modern East Malvern). A stub of the future Glen Waverley line, it was cut back to Darling in 1895. The land boom railway building hit a peak with the construction of the Rosstown Railway between Elsternwick and Oakleigh. Built by William Murry Ross, the line was planned from the 1870s to serve a sugar beet mill near Caulfield. Construction commenced in 1883, followed by rebuilding in 1888. Ross's debt grew, and he attempted to sell the line many times without success. The line never opened to traffic and was later dismantled. The stock market crash of 1891 lead to an extended period of economic depression, and put an end to railway construction until the next decade. By the 1900s, the driving force for new railway lines were the farmers in what is now Melbourne's outer suburbs. In the Dandenong Ranges a narrow gauge 762 mm line was opened from Upper Ferntree Gully to Belgrave and Gembrook in 1900 to serve the local farming and timber community. In the Yarra Valley a branch was opened from Lilydale to Yarra Junction and Warburton in 1901. Part of this line is now listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. In 1901, in preparation for the occasion of a royal visit by the Duke of York, the first Australian royal train was assembled in Melbourne. The Heidelberg line was extended to Eltham in 1902 and Hurstbridge in 1912. The freight only Mont Park line was also opened in 1911, branching from Macleod. Finally on the Mornington Peninsula, a branch was built from Bittern to Red Hill in 1921. Electrification Planning for electrification was started by Victorian Railways chairman Thomas James Tait, who engaged English engineer Charles Hesterman Merz to deliver a report on