Violet Town is a small community of approx 950 people nestled at the foot of the Strathbogie Ranges in North East Victoria, 173 km north of Melbourne. Major Thomas Mitchell, Surveyor-General of New South Wales, passed through the area in 1836 on his Australia Felix expedition. He noted several streams and chains of ponds and one, where native violets grew, was called Violet Ponds. That site was surveyed in 1838 as a site for a township, alongside the now called Honeysuckle Creek.
For thousands of years prior to European settlement aboriginal people occupied the land around Violet Town. As the earliest inland surveyed town in Victoria, Violet Town’s European settlement history is long and rich. Following the taking up of Honeysuckle Station by the Scobies in the 1840s, land selectors and developers arrived, businesses opened and the town grew through the 1860s as a hub connecting to Sydney and Bendigo. The first Post Office opened in 1852.
Violet Town Station
In 1873 the township was split with the arrival of the railway, and the orientation of the town turned from the old highway (now High Street) to Cowslip Street. Violet Town railway station was opened on 20 March 1873 as the temporary terminus of the line from Longwood, before it was extended to Benalla on 18 August 1873. A temporary building was initially provided, and was replaced in 1876 by a weatherboard structure.
As part of the North East Rail Revitalisation Project, a second platform was constructed on the 1960s built standard gauge line, in conjunction with the standard gauge conversion of the existing broad gauge track. Work began in December 2008, and was completed in late 2009.
Violet Town rail crash. Photo: LeDawn Archive, Pictures Collection, State Library Victoria
By far the most notable incident in the Southern Aurora's history was a railway accident that occurred on 7th February 1969 following the incapacitation of the driver of one of the trains, near the McDiarmids Road crossing, approximately 1 km south of Violet Town. The crash resulted in nine deaths and 117 injuries.
On the night of the accident, the Southern Aurora from Sydney departed with fourteen carriages, and was carrying a near-capacity load of 192 passengers and 22 crew by the time it reached Violet Town. A fast freight train of 22 wagons, mostly containing new cars, had departed Melbourne at 1.25 a.m. travelling north.
Photo: Daily Telegraph
The southbound Southern Aurora and northbound freight train were timetabled to cross at Benalla, north of Violet Town, at 6.44 a.m. The freight train was scheduled to enter the Benalla crossing loop at 6.15 am. However, at 6.30 .m., the train controller on duty at Train Control in Melbourne observed that both the Southern Aurora and the goods train were running behind schedule, and so he decided to have the trains pass each other at Violet Town instead, utilising a loop line that the goods train use to pass the Southern Aurora.
Southern Aurora Monument, McDiarmids Road level crossing, Violet Town. Photo: Monument Australia website
Shortly before 7 am, the Southern Aurora was signalled to slow down and let the goods train enter the loop, but the signal was ignored. It was later established that the driver of the Southern Aurora had died about 10 km before the crash, and had probably not been in effective control of the train for some time. The trains collided head-on at a closing speed later estimated at 172 km/h (107 mph) the force of the collision propelled the locomotive of the Southern Aurora, and several of the goods wagons, into the air. Six of the passenger carriages were derailed, and one was completely crushed by other wreckage. The two leading carriages telescoped into the rear of the locomotive, and two others rode over the top of the wreckage, suspending them some 30 ft (9 m) in the air.
Immediately following the crash, spilt diesel fuel caused the locomotive of the goods train to catch fire. The flames quickly spread to the derailed Southern Aurora carriages, where passengers were already attempting to escape through broken windows. Over 100 firefighters eventually arrived from neighbouring districts to assist with the firefighting, rescue and recovery effort. A stone cairn was erected on the 25th anniversary of the tragedy by the Public Transport Corporation at the site of the accident.
Southern Aurora Commemorative Garden, Cowslip Street
A plaque, erected by the Rail Corporation on the 25th anniversary of the accident, marks the spot where the Southern Aurora train crash tragedy occurred in 1969, at the McDiarmids Road level crossing on Violet Town’s western edge. Violet Town people showed their small town spirit and grit by turning out in force to put out the fire and assist train staff and passengers.
Visitors can pay their respects at the memorial. There are still objects from the crash such as broken window glass visible at the site. A new commemorative garden has been built in Cowslip Street next to the train station where further information about the Southern Aurora train, the crash and the work of local people can be found.
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