Travel Australia

Railway Stations: Nhill, Victoria

Nhill railway station opened on 19th January 1887. A number of large grain silos are located in the goods yard, at the Up end of the station. Much of the station was extensively altered in the 1980s, following the introduction of Centralised Traffic Control between Ararat and Serviceton, including the removal of the signal box, interlocking and all signals.


Above: In 1927, Nhill's yard was extended which necessitated a new signal box. This photo, taken from the footbridge, looks like it was taken not long after completion of the work. A staff exchanger lies on the platform, about to be installed, which occured between March and May 1927. Photo Victorian Railways

Originally a broad gauge station on VicRail's western line, it is now a standard gauge station, being on the Western standard gauge railway line, the standard-gauge railway line in western Victoria. Completed in 1995, the line forms part of the Melbourne–Adelaide rail corridor and serves as the principal interstate rail link between Victoria and the western states. The line replaced a number of former broad gauge routes which were gauge converted, and today sees both intrastate and interstate freight traffic, as well as the twice weekly (in each direction) The Overland passenger service.



In the 1970s, most interstate lines in Australia began to be converted to standard gauge. By the 1990s, with Adelaide to Melbourne the only interstate link not converted, various proposals were made for gauge conversion. The proposal adopted included a new track from Melbourne to Geelong, dual gauge to Gheringhap, then conversion of the line to standard gauge via Cressy, followed by conversion of the line from Ararat.

The last Victorian Railways service to stop at Nhill was the Dimboola to Serviceton service that ceased on 1 December 1978. In March 2007, The Overland passenger service began stopping at the station.

The small wheat town of Nhill (pronounced Nill) is exactly half way between Melbourne and Adelaide on the Western Highway, and 80km east of the South Australian border. The town has the biggest single-bin silo in the southern hemisphere, which has a capacity of 2.25 million bushels.

Squatters Dugald Macpherson and George Belcher were the first white men to arrive in this area in 1845. They encountered some Aboriginal people who called the place ‘nhill’ and so Macpherson called his squatting run Nhill. The first white farmers arrived to select their freehold farms in 1875 and a settlement emerged where several pastoralists’ tracks crossed. The transformation of the surrounding area from grazing to wheat-growing occurred when selectors began to take up land from 1874.


Nhill Railway Station and goods shed from the top of the Noske Silo. There is a bag wheat stack in the foreground. 1920. Photo: Museums Victoria Collections

Following the town survey a hotel, a flourmill and a store were all operating by 1880. A Police Station, Wesleyan church and two more hotels and stores were added to the town in 1881 quickly followed by a school, more churches and a Mechanics Institute. The railway reached the town in 1886 following the Victorian “Octopus Act” and by 1891 the town had over 1,100 residents. (The Octopus Act was a bill authorising 59 new railway lines to connect all major towns in Victoria by rail. Thus there was a frenzy of railway building in Victoria from 1884 to about 1890.)

Nhill was the first Victorian town to install electric lighting. The oldest of the heritage buildings in Nhill is the Post Office built with red brick gables in 1888.