Geelong is fast becoming the city of commuters with the added luxury of being close to the best beaches in Australia. Geelong has undergone significant changes over the last decade, from being the manufacturing hub of Victoria to the hip foodie area with capital city vibes.

But Geelong wasn't always the city it is today. A prison ship was moored off Corio Bay in 1850, housing prisoners who were to work on the new Geelong to Melbourne railway. After many company collapses, the railway construction began in 1854 (4 years later) and was completed in 1857.

The prison ship was aptly named Sacramento after the capital city of the US state of California. Sacramento was a 'gold rush' city; similarly in Victoria the 'gold rush' city was Ballarat. With the influx of miners using Geelong as their entryway to Ballarat, so too came an influx of criminals.

Parts of the freight-only line leading to what once was Ballarat's gold rush, are home to heritage-listed bluestone bridges and viaducts.

Now, travellers aboard the VLine trains from Geelong to Melbourne exceed 7.62m per year (FY2016-17 data). I've used the trains for leisure, for work and for study. The view out the window is a stark contrast from one end of the line to the other. Rural farmland morphs into suburbia, past the new cookie-cutter developments and finishing in the high-rise city of Melbourne.

I want to show the differences between the start of my trip, the end, and everything in between. It seems ironic that my series is about the train line yet I traipsed the line by car, nearly requiring a 4WD to navigate the pot holes and gravel roads. The good stuff is in between the stations.