"I will be doing a video about people's favorite train stations in Australia. You're a gunzel. So I guess that you must have a favorite train station. Right? If yes then what? Please write a paragraph explaining why."
- YouTube Content Creator (name withheld), via email, 5th Jan 2024.
Apparently I have enough of a reputation within the kosmos of train content creators in Australia that it warranted writing an email to me. Yes, this person is doing a fourth wall mail slot video, which is one of those classic tropes, but asking the general public for this kind of thing deserves to be a classic. Quite frankly I am both perplexed and happy that someone asked me a question.
Am I a gunzel? Possibly. The truth is that I like trains, railway stations, and all of the paraphernalia therein. As part of the built environment, buildings are erected and demolished, houses go up and then come down, all of the cars and buses on the road are this collective thing which takes about 8 years to completely change face, but trains and railway stations are this semi-permanent fixture which outlives generations of people. I for instance pass through Wynyard Station on a regular basis which was opened in 1932; so that's 6 generations of people who have passed through it. Central Electric was opened in 1926 but Sydney Terminal was opened in 1916; so that's 7 generations of people who have passed through it. Parramatta Station was opened in 1855; which means that although none of the facility dates from that far long ago, 11 generations of people have passed through it and seen it change.
The broad principle that I am trying to state here is that railway stations are these silent witnesses to the regular boring parts of history. Sure, history books revel in retelling the stories of great men and women but for every Churchill, Raleigh, Boudicca, Hatshepsut, et cetera, there will be thousands, if not millions of people who made those stories happen. Railway stations as the liminal spaces where nobody lives, are still the venue of people crying, people laughing, and where the great masses quietly waited before returning to the places they called home.
Do I have a favourite railway station in all of Australia? Absolutely. However, the reason why will surprise you.
It is Geelong.
I do not live in Geelong. I have never lived in Geelong. I do not really have fond memories of Geelong other than occasional visits to Kardinia Park as an away fan to see Hawthorn play Geelong in the AFL. Given all of this, my choice looks almost absurd. Why choose Geelong station; which is just a smallish railway station in Victoria?
Well... just look at it.
Geelong is nominally an east-west station with three platforms. As the photograph almost gives away, on opening day it only had one platform and the other two platforms were later additions. Also as the photograph shows, the additions look like they have been dressed to look like a building of purpose but the really massive awning shows that this may have been done on the cheap.
The various columns are typical of what you will find in early 20th Century railway stations in Australia. I think of places like Strathfield and Homebush in Sydney, Hawthorn in Melbourne, and even parts of Roma St in Brisbane; which all have decorated columns holding up latticework girders, with pitched awnings which then sit atop those. All of those places are island platforms, where the awnings only sit atop the islands. Geelong station has an even more massive awning; which overarches all three platforms and this is quite quite different.
Three platforms is an adequate number if you want one platform for through running in either direction and an extra platform for trains to terminate at. Geelong as a city is big enough to be a final destination and important enough that there would have been dedicated trains running a shuttle service to Spencer St in Melbourne. What makes Geelong strange though is that there is actually space for five lines through the station or perhaps four lines, with tracks 1 and 2 having loading and unloading on both sides. Geelong appears to have been built in preparation of extra capacity which was never needed and never built.
That giant oversized awning also has one feature that you just don't see anywhere else. It is made of corrugated iron. You don't tend to see as much corrugated iron these days but once upon a time, it was the de rigeur material for building sheds out of. This is the stuff that sheds on farms and sitting out in fields was made of. This is the stuff that sheds in people's backyards, where they kept the lawnmower, paint, tools, and chemicals, was made of. This is the stuff that used to sit atop buildings that were built on the cheap, that used to sit on top of people's houses. It is not usually the stuff that you would build an awning this massive out of. Standing anywhere in Geelong Station feels like you are standing in a giant shed; mostly because you are standing in a giant shed.
I mentioned previously that Geelong Station is nominally an east-west station. I have never been to Geelong really early in the morning but I have been there late in the day, after a football match has ended or after doing a day-trip in Geelong. I can not speak on what a sunrise is like at Geelong but a sunset is glorious. Golden-orange-red light fills the place as though there is a fire just out of sight. When nature spills a bucket of light into a giant shed, it is very very pretty indeed. Some people like watching the sunset sink into the sea, which can only happen on the west coast of some land; however, watching the sunset gently bathe the inside of a shed in the warm glow of 8 minute old nuclear fire, is I think just as nice. Maybe there is a reminder at the end of the day that not only the light but this mortal coil itself, is only temporary.
Geelong railway station is both over-designed and under-capitalised. It was both built on the cheap and yet remains permanent. Grand railways stations are cathedrals for the railway and yet Geelong manages to be both high church and low church at the same time. Nobody would dare suggest this kind of thing if you were trying to get planning permission for some great future project and yet Geelong has a cathedral for the railway which is grander than anything which they would have got planning permission for.
I do not know how gunzelly this makes me. I have likely selected a train station which is not going to be licked by anyone else because who would pick a giant shed? This isn't as classy as Museum, or as modern as Southern Cross, or as ornate as Adelaide, but it is charming and pretty. This is a station not of grandeur but of the ordinary people.
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