Posts Tagged ‘Victorian Railways’

Building the Spencer Street Station subway – a history

Last week I went sniffing around Southern Cross Station, on the hunt for the remains of the pedestrian subway that until 2005 was the main access route through the station This week we go digging deeper into the history of Spencer Street Station, and the story behind the subway that ran beneath it. Spencer Street […]

Hunting the remains of the Spencer Street Station subway

The pedestrian subway that once ran beneath Spencer Street Station only closed in 2005, yet in that time it has become shrouded in layers of mystery. So let’s sort fact from fiction, and see what’s left of it beneath today’s Southern Cross Station. Finding the entrances The first remnant of the Spencer Street Station subway […]

Level crossing removals in 1920s Melbourne

Given all of the work currently underway in Melbourne to remove level crossings in Melbourne, you might think that it’s a new idea. But it is nothing of the sort – the problem was first identified a century ago, and a start made to address it. SLV photo H2001.308/2928 Work kicks off Large scale removal […]

Then and now on route 82 in Ascot Vale

The Cinderella of Melbourne’s tram network is route 82, which circumnavigates the inner western suburbs from Moonee Ponds to Footscray, avoiding the CBD altogether. This Weston Langford photo from 1963 shows a Footscray bound tram headed west along Maribyrnong Road in Ascot Vale. Weston Langford photo And here is the same location today. High floor […]

Off to work at the Sunshine Harvester Factory

For decades the Sunshine Harvester factory dominated Melbourne’s west. Established in 1904 as the Braybrook Implement Works, in 1906 industrialist H.V. McKay moved his Sunshine Harvester Works to the new township, expanding it to become the largest manufacturing plant in Australia. SLV photo H2016.33/103 Around the factory In the early years employees had to trudge […]