As possibly the only person among 5 million of us in our fair city, my commute is from Marayong to Mosman. This means that my passage is from the west, through the city and out the other side. It also means that my commute is a slightly asymmetric journey because I take a train to Town Hall Station and then change for a bus to Mosman; whereas in the evening I take a bus to Wynyard and then change for the train home. As such, I have had hours and hours to ponder the weirdness of Wynyard Station; with two levels of platforms that are offset relative to each other.
If you knew nothing of the history of Sydney's semi-underground portion of the suburban rail network, then Wynyard Station would look like a mystery to you. The configuration of the platforms is bonkers, the numbering of the platforms is mad, and yet the vast majority of Sydneysiders probably pass through there without giving any of it a second thought. When you want to be out of a place as quickly as possible in the morning because you want to get to work, or you want to be out of a place as quickly as possible in the morning because you want to go home, then the incentive to ponder these things is way way down the list of priorities. Nevertheless, Wynyard is madder than Mad Jack McMad.
A very big cutaway diagram of Wynyard Station looks like this:
Wynyard has four platforms. Platforms 3 & 4 are upstairs which serve through traffic to Central up line and through traffic across the Harbour Bridge down line. Platforms 5 & 6 are offset and downstairs which serve through traffic to Central up line and through traffic to Circular Quay and the City Circle down line. The usual number pattern of platforms across the Sydney Trains networks is that Platform 1 at most stations is the one which serves up line trains to Central. Central is always deemed to be the top of the imaginary hill; with all services heading towards it being designated as 'up' and all services heading towards it being designated as 'down'.
Trains on the City Circle, assume that trains on the inner anti-clockwise line are heading up and trains on the outer clockwise line are heading downline. Thus, trains to central from Town Hall, Wynyard, Circular Quay, St James and Museum on the outer clockwise line are unique in that they are heading downline to Central.
That begs the question of where platforms 1 & 2 are. They used to exist. Platforms 1 & 2 used to be the tram platforms which weren't even part of the railway network. The tunnels which head towards Town Hall in one direction and towards the Harbour Bridge in the other, are now being used as car park space; which has to be yet another insult to the good and fair people of New South Wales.
Platform 5 & 6 being offset, are not underneath platforms 1 & 2. Once upon a time when Platforms 1 & 2 existed, the stairs aligned roughly with platforms 3 & 4. The stairs for platforms 5 & 6 were off to the side and just like the booking hall at Town Hall, it used to be possible to walk between the sets of stairs and through, without entering through the ticket barriers.
Town Hall Station when it was opened, had 6 platforms but used to only use 4. Platform 1 was for the City Circle inner line. Platform 6 was for the City Circle outer line. Platform 2 was for the Harbour Bridge up line traffic to Central. Platform 3 was for the Harbour Bridge down line traffic to Milsons Point. That meant that on opening, platforms 4 & 5 were unused and would remain unused from 1926 until 1979.
St James has a similar problem in that Platform 1 was for the City Circle inner line. Platform 2 was for the City Circle outer line. However, St James is a super wide platform which has two infilled platforms which were saved in case the Eastern Suburbs Railway Line was going to be connected there. Tunnels head north from St James and downwards into an underground lake thing and probably would have been called platforms 2 & 3 had they ever been used.
The only possible way to explain any of this is to look at the original 1915 plan as envisaged by the then Director of Works, John Bradfield.
Probably Bradfield had originally thought that trains from Wynyard would pass underground through Circular Quay and then to the inner circle platforms at St James. They would have been on the western island platform which would have been numbered as 1 & 2. Town Hall was originally built to serve a different conceived Eastern Suburbs Railway and the configuration of platforms was built for this but not realised for decades. Assuming St James was part of the Eastern Suburbs Railway, then then line would have passed through the eastern island platform which would have been numbered as 3 & 4.
I have no idea where or how the proposed Pitt St or O'Connell St Stations are supposed to have fit into the network because every which way you draw pretend maps over the city, you're going to end up with a curve that is tighter than the single track switchback at Lidcombe. That wee section of track is only rated for 15km/h.
If we use St James as the template then it seems to me that there should be enough space underneath platforms 1 & 2 (not-used) and underneath platforms 3 & 4 to place another set of platforms, as many as four of them, which would give Wynyard 8 platforms and it the tram platforms are reclaimed, as many as 10. This very much begs the question of what Bradfield was thinking in the first place.
Maybe he had intended for Wynyard to serve as some grand underground terminal; with platforms 7 & 8 and 9 & 10, serving lines for the inner west through Rozelle, Balmain, Five Dock etc. and still had capacity for other dreams. When Wynyard was opened, the tram platforms 1 & 2 were unique in that they were the only underground tram termini in the world. The tunnels which head north towards the Sydney Harbour Bridge and south towards Town Hall, can fit full size suburban rail stock through them and I can only imagine that Bradfield's plan to head north from Milsons Point to the Northern Beaches, would have cost many many billions of pounds.
As I go across the bridge in the morning, I can not help but wonder if Bradfield's plan to build the Northern Beaches line, which would have used Platforms 1 & 2 at Wynyard, lanes 7 & 8 on the Harbour Bridge, what used to the tram station at Milsons Point, then bored into the hill where the Warringah Expressway is and then turned right, for Neutral Bay, Cremorne, Mosman, Balgowlah, Manly, and as far north we Newport, would have taken 2000 cars an hour every hour off the road.
The whole culture of the Northern Beaches, who do not want to share public transport with each other or anyone else, had probably shaped and been shaped by the lack of any meaningful public transport infrastructure. I guess that they have gotten what they have repeatedly chosen?
I also do not know what kind of rolling stock that Bradfield imagined would be in his underground network of tunnels. When the commuter train network proper opened in 1926, Sydney was using full size main line trains over the commuter network. That complete lack of forethought accidentally allowed the space for the double deck sets to be introduced in the 1960s. 107 years after Bradfield scribbled his imaginary lines on the map of Sydney, I scoot to and from work in massive bespoke double deck T, A and B sets. In principle, the idea of running full size main line trains over the commuter network is mad; which is fitting given how mad Wynyard Station is.
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