Road Photos & Information: New South Wales
  Hume Highway (Decommissioned)
Old National Route 31 Trailblazer
National Route 31 trailblazer with button copy from 1954. Hume Highway was the first route to receive a National Route number, which began as a trial. Image © Department of Main Roads. Scanned from The Roadmakers, A History of Main Roads in New South Wales, ISBN 0 7240 0439 4

Statistics:

Route Numbering:

General Information:

The Hume Highway is one of Australia's most vital highway links. Providing access between Sydney and Melbourne, Australia's 2 largest cities. The National Highway section of the Hume Highway consists of almost 100% dual carriageway road, either rural expressway or motorway standard. Works to duplicate small sections of highway that are not dual carriageway are well underway.

In NSW, the highway in one form or another started life as the Great South Road, linking Sydney with the southern highlands and eventually beyond. The highway was named in 1928 after Hamilton Hume (1797-1873), a famous explorer in the early 19th century who, in 1824, in conjunction with William Hovell first found an overland route between Sydney and the infant colonial outpost of Port Phillip, the original name of Melbourne.

NH31 is the main freight and commuter route between Sydney and Melbourne and has gone through a massive amount of transformation over the past 30 or so years, with many towns being bypassed along its route as well and gradual upgrades to motorway standards. Since the 1960s, the road has either been duplicated, where alignments allow for it, and also large deviations have also been part of the upgrade process.

The route around the Mittagong area averages around 16,000 vehicles every day, in other sections the number drops off a little or closer to Sydney increases.2

The route forms the Remembrance Driveway which honors war veterans, click here for the Remembrance Driveway web site.

Here are some interesting statistics on the Hume Highway: 1

History (Covers Entire Hume Hwy Length in NSW):

Aside from what is covered here on this page, further Hume Highway information can be found elsewhere on this site. This is because the route has had many changes in its life, and parts of the Hume Highway named route form other routes within the state. See Metroad 5, State Route 31 and State Route 89. For images of the former Hume Highway alignment within the context of the current route, see the individual sections marked on the map below.

1 Roads and Traffic Authority
2 Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government
3 Department of Main Roads. The Roadmakers, A History of Main Roads in New South Wales, ISBN 0 7240 0439 4
4 Argyle County web site

5 Berrima Business Houses

Last updated: 26-Feb-2017 14:32

This site © Paul Rands. All rights reserved. Some portions © (copyright) by their respective and credited owners. Permission must be obtained before using any images from this site. For details, please email by clicking here.