AustLit

George Francis Train was an American merchant and entrepreneur whose main endeavours involved transport companies.

The Australian Dictionary of Biography states: 'The flamboyant Train was representative in many ways of the scores of American merchants attracted to Australia by the gold rushes. Melbourne partly owes its nineteenth-century reputation for being Americanized to men like him and his partner Ebenezer Caldwell, a respectable New England sea captain.' Apart from building 'substantial warehouses' in Melbourne, Train and Caldwell 'were prominent in organizing a volunteer fire brigade; they imported clothing, guns, flour, building materials, patent medicines, mining tools, coaches and carts, wagons and buggies'.

Source: E. Daniel Potts, 'Train, George Francis (1829–1904)', Australian Dictionary of Biography, National Centre of Biography, Australian National University, http://adb.anu.edu.au/biography/train-george-francis-4745/text7881, published in hardcopy 1976, accessed online 7 August 2014.