The first "central" station - known as Redfern Station - opened in 1855 with Devonshire Street as its northern boundary. The second central station commenced in 1874 on the same site with the same name. Our Central Station commenced in 1906 on its current site further to the north and with Devonshire Street disappearing into a pedestrian tunnel on the southern end of the platforms. The clock tower was added in 1921. If you look at a map of the city, it is apparent how dislocated the city became with the advent of the enlarged Central Railway Station. Streets running N-S are blocked as well as streets running E-W. This column in the Sydney Morning Herald in December 2007 is an excellent read for locals. Jim Barr is a Sydney blogger who has some wonderful posts showing railway stations mainly on the southern line.
The site to which Central moved had been the Devonshire Street Cemetery known as "the sandhills" which was consecrated in 1820. Many of the headstones and graves had to be removed to the larger Rookwood Cemetery. This station - with 15 platforms - was known as the country platforms and was for steam trains. In 1926 an 8 platform station was built adjacent and to the East for the expanding electrification of the suburban network. A further 4 underground platforms were constructed in 1974 to service the new Eastern Suburbs line.
| This image, released by The Powerhouse Museum - is one of the earliest images of the third incarnation of Central Station, 1906. |
The mid-month Subway theme has contributions from the following cities:
Budapest - London - New York - Paris - Stockholm - Sydney
Next month's Subway post: Town Hall Station
12 comments:
Excellent photos and it was great to read all that history. Thanks for the mention of my blog Julie.
Sydney - City and Suburbs
I really like Central station and you've done a lovely job of capturing the essence of the place. I don't think I could ever be as dedicated to railway stations as Jim though.
Great to see the picture from 1906 (even with the broken glass)!
Wow you have done a lot of work and research. Well done.
The broken glass adds just so much, Peter.
Mo: I thoroughly enjoy the research and anything to do with local history. Totally in my element!
You capture the station in such a warm, golden light. The images are full of promise and hope. There's a sense of destiny waiting here.
Wonderful sydneyscape there. I wanna visit the place again!
How interesting. You've deftly compressed all that history into a few paragraphs. We don't have subways - or basements. The water table is too high for either.
That is one thing that Sydney has no problem with: a high water table!
Thank you for all your comments. Local history is a fascinating hobby and helps me to learn quirky things about my city and enables me to go by byways both literally and figuratively.
Wow, that is an impressive looking train station.
I also love the comparison with the earlier image of the Central Station.
As far as I know, or can remember, Central Station (at least the country platforms) was the only station that didn't display it's name, signage wise.
During WW2 all the suburban stations had their large signs removed so that Jap pilots could not look down and see where they were.
Bruce.
It looks realy nice in these shots. Thanks for the history lesson. It certainly has grown over the years.
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