Melborn, Victoria, Australia, Flinders Street Station

[daveklepper]

Flinders Street Station—The icon!

              With the invention of the passenger train [1820-1825], Victorian England discovered a new challenge:  Building impressive train terminals.

Over the next hundred years many icons and signs of British Empire power were built across England and her colonies. Not to be outdone, Europe, then the USA and even distant South East Asia also started to build impressive, enormous and busy railway terminals. Even today, visitors to Victoria Station, Gare du Nord or Milano Centrale see the impressive grandeur of the past..

The list of impressive and grand Termini across the World is superb.

Here is a small taste:

Queen Victoria [Iron roof supports] in London,  Gare du Nord/Paris  [the busiest in Europe (?),  Clapham Junction [the busiest rail traffic -every 13 seconds],  Grand Central in New York [A work of art],  Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in India [enormous, even by enormous standards], Milano Centrale [an excess of Italian marble ] and Luz station in Brazil.

This brings me to a famous, essential and Melbournian Icon.

Flinders Street station.

But first—about the brother of FSS. [Flinders Street Station].

Luz Station in Sao Paulo was designed, assembled and built!, in Glasgow, then disassembled and shipped to Sao Paulo, Brazil   and assembled-a second time! Since 1901 it has served the millions of people in Sao Paulo and environs. It is a stunning building. In fact; by 1980 railway usage in Sao Paulo has fallen  but this icon remains.

This Brazilian RR station resembles the FSS! There is a fair and optic similarity between the two Stations.

So, NOW the FSS.

On the corner of main roads Swanson  and Flinders Streets, taking up two city blocks-stands a stone building. It has 6 floors and a clock tower. The light brown- orange stone   and the reddish trimming are the unique , iconic and obvious “place” that makes Melbourne an modern but architecturally special city.

It was then  in the 20s the busiest RR station in the world, and even today 95000 passengers move through the station every week day.

On 12^th September 1854 Lt. Governor Charles Hotham open The Melbourne Terminus. Victoria was an independent colony of the British Empire, extremely rich, full of immigrants and had already established her place in Australia as a ‘good place to bring up your family’. The Yarra River, a few yards away was both a port facility, a fresh water source and a cool place to spend the summer heat. The Royal Melbourne Botanical Gardens—[from 1846, and redesigned 1873] was just a short walk way-and created the basic concept that defines Melbourne—parkland, open spaces and people-orientated pubic services.

Weatherboard train sheds served the first passengers, and one train platform. Melbourne is renound for rain -as a winter sport  and so, soon a few roofing’s were in place over the platform. The new terminus served the new and unique steam service from Flinders Street to Sandridge-4 kilometers away. It was at a public meeting in September 1851 and then the decision by a private company [The Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company] in 1853 that created this new railway line in 1854. The Melbourne terminus was born.

The company [and other local railways companies] ordered Steam locomotives from the UK, but shipping delays caused the first Steam locomotive to be built locally and on 12 September 1854 a real Australian locomotive pulled a three [wooden] carriage [two first class carriages and one second class] train from Flinders Street station to Station pier-it took 10 minutes. The train tracks actually went up and on the wooden pier. [Wood -especially Eucalyptus tree wood, was very plentiful and cheap. It had excellent weather resistant qualities.]

This was the height of the Victorian Gold rush; Melbourne was a well known “major-city” and immigrants had been pouring in from all over the World. The crowds for this train-inauguration were enormous.

With-in 6 months 4 new engines had arrived from England and soon, every half an hour a train pulling 3 to 5 carriages steamed out of the Flinder’s Street Station. The four engines had all been named and frequent passengers were called each engine either M, S, V, Y.

Soon a new set of tracks was laid to St. Kilda and the station became even busier. By 1900 several tracks had been laid to suburbs and FSS was well on the way to greatness.

By 1882 it was obvious that a “real” station needed to be built. A national competition was indicated with a 500 Pound prize. By 1899,

17 different archectural plans had been presented and after a decision by 1901 foundations were been laid.[The Yarra river, very close by: created several engineering crisis. ] Meanwhile the existing tracks were been moved and consolidated. By 1903 a building existed but it was been changed while work was in progress. An extra story was been added. By 1906 a redesigned building was ordered.

The dome was the main problem. It was too heavy for the foundations. Some sections were rebuilt. The original contractor -a builder from Balllarat Peter Rodgers was both slow and had to deal with constant changes in the work plan. The final structure was made from red bricks and cement. Grey granite was used at the passenger level for effect and timber with painted zinc sheets was used in the upper floors. A series of building crises in 1908 and then 1909 forced the contractor to stop work and  a new contractor was found. The building was finally ready for the great opening in 1910. There were sections still not finished.

By 1926 Flinders Street station was the World’s busiest station.

In 1954, the whole facade of the station as lit up with electric lights for the Royal visit.

In 1966 Platform 1 was extended, to cope with the passenger traffic. It was now 708 meters long!

In the 60s and the 70s plans were discussed and even drawn up to demolish, and rebuild th whole station and the adjacent Jolimont rail yards. Offers were made to rent out the space over the building, and even a 60 story office tower was considered.

In 1989 a modern mall was considered : to be built over the tracks and platforms.

In 2011, after considerable give and take, and with the intervention of the National Trust, the existing building was to be kept in place and just ‘re-juvinated”.

In 2015 A$100 million was found to upgrade and re-juvinate -again the Station.  The fairly new Federation Square -opposite and across the road-that was born in 1968 but built in 2002, has created a “brother and sister” bi-onic ;whereby the “old” Flinders Street station is the “old-Stately world” and the new square is the “future”.

The 9+1 clocks on the face of the FSS date from 1860-imported from England. They were adjusted some 900 times a day by  a rail-way employee with a long pole. In 1983 plans were made to replace them with more modern and electronic clocks. After a short and very vocal tirade by the public the plans were dropped. Meanwhile, the clocks are now adjusted by computer and new internal electronics have been fitted.

A clock tower, facing Elizabeth street from 1883 has been moved a few times, in 1905 it was replaced and since then the current clock tower, now electronically adjusted every few seconds has been rebuilt, and occasionally upgraded.

The situation today is that the FSS makes up a major landmark of  a four section central icon of Melbourne. The two northern parts are the FFS and the Federation Square Complex. [One old and one new]

Then the Yarra river cuts the ‘4 square’ in half, and the two southern sections are the National Gallery and Arts Center and the top part of the historic Botanical Gardens. [A very large mass of grass, open space, monuments and botanic growth.]

The FSS will need maintance, upgrades and the occasional re-fit but the character of the Melbournian Citizen will never allow this historic landmark to disappear or be “modernized”.

Steve Sattler

Jerusalem      April 2017