A few photos of Southern Cross Station in Melbourne taken, I think, in 2012. Unfortunately the images are a bit on the small side, but they were taken with a rather old mobile phone.
I still refuse to call it that - it is still Spencer Street to me. Southern Cross came out of nowhere and means nothing! Having said that, the 'new' station is a LOT more civilised than the crumbling old station was. Nice photos. I have quite a few myself taken over many years, and of varying quality depending on the cameras/phones I had at the given times.
It is certainly more attractive (in an engineering sense?) than the old one I remember from my days in Melbourne. I visited there not long ago to see a steamrail display and unfortunately the acoustics in the whole building are terrible!!! The undulating design of the roof is the main problem. Get your information before entering as you will not hear anything clearly once inside. Cheers Richard
I never experienced the old Spencer Street station. If you ignore a visit in 1958, from which I cannot remember a great deal, the first time I saw Melbourne was shortly after Southern Cross was opened.
I took these during the reconstruction works. I was more aiming at the different train types, and took many photos looking northwards from Spencer Street, but these few show bits of the station itself. A60 stabled there while the platforms are rebuilt nearby. A60 at Spencer Street 1 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Sprinter 7014, showing what the old platform surfaces were like, and with the new high level foot bridge/concourse at the northern end under construction. Sprinter 7014 at Spencer Street 1 mod by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr Sprinter 7014 at Spencer Street 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr And from Spencer Street itself, with a C1 tram (corrected) passing by on route 109 from Port Melbourne to Box Hill (the latter terminus not all that far from me). Southern Cross-Spencer Street station rebuilding 2 by Jeffrey Lynn, on Flickr
Hello SRMan, from a signalling perspective, the location still is Spencer St ( SSS ), Southern Cross refers to the station, as opposed to the location. The cost of changing over all the plans and wiring references from Spencer St to Southern Cross would be prohibitive. For the same reason I expect North Melbourne (NME)will remain as NME after North Melbourne station becomes West Melbourne ( which is its actual geographic location ) when the new Underground station at Arden St will become North Melbourne. ( and I wonder if that will become Arden St / ARD for signalling purposes ? ) From a Working Time Table / WTT // Master Train Plan / MTP perspective, Southern Cross is still SSS for the same reason, though obviously the Public Time Tables show Southern Cross. The current station track layout, but not some of the current platform locations, has not greatly changed from its immediate predecessor, though subsequent to the new Southern Cross station being completed , the down end of the Country Arrival and Departure Roads has undergone a significant revision. Pre WW2, the Country Terminal and Yards were electrified, as shunting was undertaken by the E1100 class BoBo electric locomotives, which were built by the VR Newport Workshops out of the Red Tait set spares . As I knew the Driver, I rode on one in the early 1970s at Dandenong , and you were protected from the electricals by cyclone wire fencing ! Modern day OH&S requirement should rule that out now. Once upon a time, most people were sensible enough not to touch this stuff for obvious reasons, but we now seem to have to presume that everyone has zero sense or knowledge about the presumption of obvious dangers, so everything is covered up, and the panels are covered in Safety Plaques. ( Must be time to redesign all those old style, and therefore dangerous, Safety plaques for new ones ! ) The current Southern Cross is the 4th attempt to build and complete a new Country Railway Terminal, and like its predecessors , has also not been completed as originally intended, though it has got closer to completion than any of its predecessors . There will need to be further major alterations undertaken to accomodate the proposed 4 car Vlocity sets , and also the High Speed Sets proposed for the Geelong line, and the electrified Dual Mode Long Distance Sets for the Airport and Regional centres, so it is possible that the 5th or 6th iteration may actually see SSS completed ! Regards, Echidna
You have reminded me of an earlier renaming proposal, Echidna. When Melbourne Central shopping centre management wanted to change the name of Museum station right underneath them, the MET (or whoever it was at the time) said it would cost them over $3million to change all the names and maps and publicity material. A few years later, the museum closed and moved further away from the CBD, so they had to change the station name to reflect this anyway - in the end it didn't cost Melbourne Central anything, as far as I know!
