Albury railway station

Albury railway station is a heritage-listed railway station at Railway Place, Albury, New South Wales, Australia, adjacent to the border with Victoria, in Australia. It was designed under the direction of John Whitton and built from 1880 to 1881. It was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register in 1999.

The railway precinct at Albury was the terminus for the Main Southern Line from 1881 until 1962. It remains as an operational railway yard and passenger station and is the last station before the NSW/Victoria border. By the late 19th century, colonial rivalry between Victoria and NSW, particularly with regard to the competition for wool trade from the Riverina, was the catalyst for the rapid expansion of rail networks in both states in the direction of the Victoria/NSW border. In Victoria, a proposal for a line to Belvoir (Wodonga) was approved in 1869 and completed by 1873. In April 1873, John Sutherland, the Minister for Public Works, set out a policy to complete "the main trunk railways". The policy included the Great Southern Line and was in response to the threat that wool from the Riverina and the west would be diverted to Melbourne via river boats and the Victorian railway. By 1877, the Great Southern Railway extended from Sydney to as far as Cootamundra and rapidly continued on to Bethungra (1878), Junee (1878), Bomen (1878), Wagga Wagga (1879), and Gerogery (1880). The construction contract for the Wagga Wagga to Albury section was awarded to George Cornwell & F. Mixner on 14 February 1878. The single line opened from Gerogery to Albury on 3 February 1881. The line finally reached the border with the extension across the Murray River on 14 June 1883 as a single track, the contract being awarded to Alex Frew on 1 May 1882. The station and yard at Albury opened with a loop, stockyards, toilet, wool stage and a temporary platform on 1 March 1881. Albury and Wodonga were both used as change stations, with the interchange of passengers and goods to take place at Albury and livestock at Wodonga. A contract for construction of a temporary station building, crew barracks, porters' cottages, Station Master's residence, and carriage shed at Albury was let to a J. Stevens in May 1880. In 1882, a 10 tonne crane and a cart weighbridge were installed, the temporary passenger platform converted to a loading stage, and the signal box moved from the temporary platform to a new location near the station. On 26 February 1882, the new station building was opened. Designed in an Italianate style under the direction of John Whitton, the grandeur of the new building stood as a symbol of NSW's colonial pride. The premiers of both New South Wales and Victoria attended the official opening of the 1881 station, marking the first time in Australian history that two colonial premiers had appeared together publicly. The New South Wales Government Railways were built to the standard gauge, which meant travellers in both directions had to change trains at Albury. This resulted in a 455-metre-long (1,493 ft) platform being built to accommodate that move, then the longest in Australia. Early changes to the station precinct included construction of refreshment rooms, a goods shed and a temporary customs office in 1883, and an engine shed, new covered platform and new goods shed in 1884. In 1887, the station and southern end of the yard were interlocked and the southern yard remodelled. Other changes at Albury in the late 19th century included alterations to the barracks (1890), provision of a furnace for heating foot warmers (1890), provision of a special booking office on the platform for sleeping berth tickets for passengers from Victorian trains (1890), new drivers' barracks (1890), interlocking of the North Yard (1891), and the extension of

TrainStation data from Wikidata (CC0). Summary from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA).