Calder Highway

Calder Highway is a highway in Australia, linking Melbourne in Victoria, to Bendigo and Mildura and the Victoria/New South Wales border on the way to Broken Hill. It continues through New South Wales to Broken Hill, Tibooburra and the New South Wales/Queensland border as the Silver City Highway, posted as route B79 as far as Broken Hill.The highway is called the Calder Freeway south of Bendigo where it has been upgraded to freeway-standard, superseding sections of the original Calder Highway. It has been extended in phases from the southern end to Ravenswood South subsuming the older Calder Highway stretches. The Victorian Government completed the duplication of the Calder Highway from Melbourne to Bendigo to freeway conditions on 20 April 2009.HistoryThe Calder Highway was named after William Calder, who was chairman of the Country Roads Board (CRB) from 1913 to 1928. The CRB was renamed Victorian Road Construction Authority and is today known as VicRoads.The highway was originally allocated a National Route 79 shield. With Victoria's conversion to the newer alphanumeric system in the late 1990s this was altered to an A79 designation for the highway portion, M79 designation for the freeway portion into Melbourne, and the New South Wales section allocated B79 in 2013.