Travel Australia

Classic Railway Stations: Albury, New South Wales

Albury-Wodonga is a broad settlement incorporating the twin Australian cities of Albury and Wodonga, built around where the Hume Highway cross the Murray River. Albury is separated from its twin city in Victoria, Wodonga by the Murray River. Albury Railway Station opened in 1881 with the arrival of the main line from Sydney. Two years later, the Victorian Irish broad gauge (1,600mm/5ft 3in) was built across the Murray River. At last, a rail connection was made between Australia's largest two cities, Sydney and Melbourne, but, in so doing, created the famous break of gaugeon the New South Wales/Victoria border.

From 1883 until 1962, all through-rail passengers between Sydney and Melbourne had to change trains at Albury, which involved everyone exiting one train along with their luggage, walking to the other side of the platform and boarding the waiting train, then finding their seat on the new train. New South Wales trains operated on the eastern side and Victorian trains, including the Spirit of Progress, on the western side.


The longest railway stationm platform in the Southern Hemisphere is at Albury, where passengers crossed from a train on one side of the platform to join a train on the other

The long list of VIPs who became Albury train-changers includes Sir Edmund Barton, Agatha Christie (1920), the Duke of Cornwall (later King George V, 1901), Arthur Conan Doyle (1920), Prince Henry, Duke of Gloucester (1934), D.H. Lawrence (1922), Rudyard Kipling (1891), Dame Nellie Melba (1931), Robert Louis Stevenson (1890), Mark Twain (1895), H.G. Wells (1939) and the Duke of York (later King George VI, 1927).

The 'break of gauge' at Albury was finally eliminated in 1962, when a single-track standard-gauge line was built between Albury and Melbourne, on the eastern side of the broad-gauge track.

Station Building

The grand symmetrical Victorian Italianate style station building features a tall central tower topped with a decorative cupola. The building features load bearing brickwork with face brick and stuccoed and painted detail for pilasters, arches, quoins, pediments, string courses and architraves. The building has a pitched roof with hipped ends and hipped transverse bays at the ends of the building. The roof over the booking hall is elevated.

The road-side of the building features the clock tower and two verandahs between the projecting bays supported on double cast iron columns. The platform side has a series of gabled roofs running at right angles to the main building; all supported on trusses over cast iron, decorated, fluted columns. Timber valances are still intact on the exterior of the building. The awning over the platform extension at the south end is of later design than the station building awning. The platform is covered for its entire length (and with Flinders St, Melbourne is the longest platform in Australia.



Internally the building is arranged along the platform with a central booking hall and ticket office which contains most of its original cedar detailing and panelling. Opening off this space are a number of offices. Along the platform there is access to the ladies waiting room (divided into first and second class sections), the parcels office (also accessed from the street), stores, porters room, lamp room and male toilets. The stores and toilets are separated from the main building by a passageway and are under separate hipped roofs with dormer gables.



A refreshment room was added to the station building in the 1880s at the Sydney end of the main building and in a similar style to the main building. It has a separate awning structure of later construction which extends beyond the station building. Also the north end of the building has been extended by the addition of a second storey to provide additional accommodation space for the refreshment rooms.

The refreshment room closed in August 1975. The gatekeeper's residence was demolished in 1984 and the Institute building demolished in 1986. Railway residences at 528–538 Young Street and the railway barracks at 540 Young street were sold to private ownership in 1991. The goods shed, tripod crane and various other buildings and structures in the northern yard were demolished prior to 2000.