City Loop

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The City Loop (originally called the Melbourne Underground Rail Loop or MURL) is a piece of underground metropolitan rail infrastructure in the city centre of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The loop includes four single-track rail tunnels and three underground stations: Flagstaff, Melbourne Central (formerly Museum) and Parliament. The loop connects to Melbourne's two busiest stations, Flinders Street and Southern Cross, and together with the Flinders Street Viaduct forms a ring of four individual tracks around the CBD. Eleven metropolitan lines of the Melbourne rail network run through the City Loop, organised into four separate groups, the Burnley, Caulfield, Clifton Hill/City Circle, and Northern groups. Each group has its own dedicated single-track tunnel, with trains running on balloon loops around the CBD. The Loop follows La Trobe and Spring Streets along the northern and eastern edges of the CBD's street grid. Although concepts for an underground railway had been raised since the 1920s, planning was not seriously progressed until the 1960s. The Melbourne Underground Rail Loop Act 1970 finalised the design and established an authority to oversee construction of the project. Tunnelling works began in 1972 and the Loop commenced operation in 1981 with the opening of Museum station, now Melbourne Central. The loop was fully complete in 1985 with the opening of Flagstaff station. The Metro Tunnel, a new rail tunnel under the CBD built to relieve pressure on the City Loop, began operating following a soft-open on 30 November 2025. From 1 February 2026, the Pakenham, Cranbourne and Sunbury metropolitan lines were fully removed from the Loop to full-time through the Metro Tunnel, while the Frankston line returned to the Caulfield loop tunnel. As a result of this, the Sandringham lines will through-run with the Werribee/Williamstown lines.