Central railway station, Sydney

Central is a heritage-listed railway station located in the centre of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. The station is Australia's largest and busiest railway station, and is a major transport interchange for NSW TrainLink inter-city rail services, Sydney Trains commuter rail services, Sydney Metro services, Sydney Light Rail services, bus services, and private coach transport services. The station is also known as Sydney Terminal (Platforms 1 to 12). The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999. It recorded 85.4 million passenger movements in 2018 and serves over 250,000 people daily.

Central station occupies a large city block separating , Surry Hills and the central business district, bounded by Railway Square and Pitt Street in the west, Eddy Avenue in the north, Elizabeth Street in the east and the Devonshire Street Tunnel in the south. Parts of the station and marshalling yards extend as far south as Cleveland Street, and are located on the site of the former Devonshire Street Cemetery.

History

There have been three terminal stations in Sydney.

First Sydney terminal

The railway arrived in New South Wales in 1831. Proposals began in the 1840s for a railway linking Sydney and Parramatta, with an eastern terminus close to the Sydney city centre.

Although the Sydney Railway Company first applied to the government for four blocks of land between Hay and Cleveland streets in 1849, the Surveyor General favoured Grose Farm, now the grounds of the University of Sydney. It was further from the city and less costly to develop. The company finally exchanged land in the first, second and third blocks, between Hay and Devonshire Streets, for an increased area of in the fourth block, the Government Paddocks, between Devonshire and Cleveland Streets. Hence, the site of the first Sydney railway terminus was located here from 1855. It was frequently but unofficially called "Redfern Station", while at that time, the present Redfern Station was officially called "Eveleigh". Although called "Redfern Station", the first and second Sydney Terminals were never actually located in Redfern, being to the north of Cleveland Street, which is Redfern's northern boundary.

The first and second station buildings were both in the form of a shed which covered the main line. A photograph of the exterior of the first station taken in 1871 shows vertical boarding, windows with a hood and a corrugated iron roof, with a roof vent. Internally, the stud framing and timber truss roof members were exposed. The offices and public facilities were contained in the adjacent lean-to, which faced George Street.

Only one platform and the main up-line served the passenger station. A similar platform and line layout was used for the Mortuary Station, constructed 15 years later; however, the level of detail and materials varied considerably.

During Governor Macquarie's term, the future site of the Sydney Terminal was beyond the limits of settlement, which were marked by the tollhouse located at the end of George Street and at the entrance to Railway Square. South Sydney Morgue, the Convent of the Good Samaritan, the Sydney Female Refuge, police barracks and superintendent's residence (on Pitt Street), Christ Church Parsonage, the Benevolent Asylum (fronting Railway Square), a steam train depot (at the corner of Pitt Street with Garden Road), as well as some residential properties on Railway Place. It is listed on the NSW State Heritage Register

Henry Deane, in a lecture given to the Sydney University Engineering Society in 1902, describes the layout of the Central Railway Station that was currently under construction: Devonshire Street, which separated the two stations, became a pedestrian underpass to allow people to cross the railway line and is now known by many as the Devonshire Street Tunnel. This incident had a direct influence on the introduction of 6 o'clock closing of hotels in 1916, which lasted in New South Wales until 1955.

Sydney Yard

The first Sydney railway workshop, constructed , was a substantial two storey sandstone building with arched openings to both floors and a slate roof. A boiler, for the production of steam, was located at the southern end of the building. By 1865, a timber extension had been constructed over a section of track to allow the locomotives to be worked on under cover. A blacksmiths forge was located in an adjacent single storey building. In contrast with the first Redfern Station building (Sydney Terminal) the main workshop building was an elaborately detailed sandstone building, with a rock-faced ashlar base, quoins and sills. The use of substantial and well-detailed sandstone buildings on the site was to continue with the construction of the twin-gabled goods shed, the Mortuary Station and finally the present station building and its approaches.

Station layout

Central Railway Station has buildings concentrated on its northern boundaries that are fed by large rail yards behind. Together they form part of the fabric of the city of Sydney and form boundaries to its inner suburbs. The location of this station is on land that has been in continuous government use since the commencement of European settlement. Various forms of public transport have

radiated from this site since 1855. As part of the construction of the electrified city railway in the 1920s, the existing station was cut back to 15 platforms with new platforms built to the east of the existing station. As part of the project, platforms 10 to 15 were electrified, with platforms 1 to 9 following in 1956.thumb|Grand Concourse departures board and information standThe current 15 Sydney Terminal platforms run perpendicular to the main station concourse and all are dead ended with the buffer stop. They are arranged as seven double platforms and one single platform, each with an awning, servicing a total of 15 tracks. Platforms 1–3 are for country and interstate services, while the remainder are for interurban services.

Two further underground platforms were built as part of the Eastern Suburbs Railway, bringing the total number of platforms in the suburban section to ten. Construction commenced in 1948 but the line was not finished until 1979. While the plans called for four platforms, two (for the Southern Suburbs line) were intended to be used in the future and have never been brought into service. They were for a time used for archival storage by the railways.

Metro platforms and Central Walk

Construction began in 2018 on two new underground platforms as part of the Sydney Metro City & Southwest project, and a new landmark underground concourse called Central Walk, which connects the suburban, intercity and metro platforms.

Central Walk was partially opened in November 2022 and was fully opened in April 2023. Central Walk provides lift and escalator access to the suburban platforms, which previously had only lift and stair access.

The metro platforms were built beneath Platforms 13 and 14, which were closed for the duration of construction. In November and December 2018, Platforms 12-13 and 14-15 were demolished. A temporary Platform 12 was erected in January 2019. The metro platforms opened on 19 August 2024. From opening, the long and tall escalators between Central Walk and the metro platforms are the longest in the southern hemisphere, overtaking the previous record of long escalators at Perth's Airport Central railway station.

Indicator board

thumb|1906 Central station Indicator Board on display at the [[Powerhouse Museum in Ultimo]]

When opened, Central station had an indicator board with 22 vertical panels. It was replaced in June 1982 by computer screens with the original indicator board conserved by the Powerhouse Museum. In June 2015, a new elevated indicator board was installed on the main concourse on the same sandstone base as the original board.

Devonshire Street Tunnel

After Central was built in 1906, Devonshire Street, to the north of the old station, became an underpass, now called the Devonshire Street Tunnel or Devonshire Street Subway. The underpass allows pedestrians to access the eastern "suburban" section from Railway Square and Chalmers Street. To the west, the tunnel continues under Railway Square and connects to The Goods Line – the former Darling Harbour railway line which has been converted to a park and pedestrian pathway to Ultimo and Darling Harbour.

Railway Square

The western side of the Sydney Terminal building leads down to Railway Square, originally Central Square, at the junction of George and Pitt streets. Although Railway Square no longer signifies the entrance to the interior of the colony, it has always channelled traffic from the southern parts of the city and out west to Parramatta. From the building of the first railway terminus at Devonshire Street in 1855, it was an important focus for the arrival of country persons to the city and later commuters into the city. This was the last remaining carriage shed at Central Station. The six rail lines that enter the shed were connected to the yard through tunnels at the end of Platform 1.

The Yard was designed for locomotive-hauled trains. As this technology has gone out of use except for the Indian Pacific and Special Trains the yard has little present functional use. With locomotive hauled trains the trains were marshalled for running in one direction. It has the locomotive at the head of the train and a brake van near the rear. This meant that trains when ending their journey had to be remarshalled before commencing their journey out of Sydney Station. The introduction of trains with driving positions at both ends of the train no longer require this process. As the station originally handled locomotive hauled passenger trains for suburban, country and interstate service this activity was considerable. Most of the steam loco facilities and trackwork has been removed. The decline in shunting and the removal of coal and water storage has seen a reduction in the level of activity in the yard. Although it has progressed through various configurations, the landscape has maintained the same ground level since 1856 with its final layout being enlarged in 1906 by the removal of some houses and the realignment of Regent Street to its present format.

Former Prince Alfred Sidings

The Prince Alfred Sidings were formerly to the south of Platform 23 and on the eastern perimeter of the site, making up the boundary with Prince Alfred Park to the southeast. The Prince Alfred or "PA" electric car sidings were built only after the flyovers. Prior to the construction of the electric lines, the yard was a goods yard containing Produce and Goods Sheds as well as the first carriage shed. All have been removed from this precinct. The Yard is a small part of the original Sydney yard, of which a number of buildings remain which date from 1870. Later additional buildings are associated with the 1926 Electric Suburban System. The construction of the electric system reduced the width of the Prince Alfred Sidings, and trains within this yard needed to be protected because of vandalism. The Electric Sub Station is part of the 1926 electrification works and is linked with the sub station at the Sydney Harbour Bridge. It also contains air compressors for the operation of pneumatic points within the Yard and the City Circle Lines. A retaining wall forms the boundary with Prince Alfred Park; it has been incorporated into the rear wall of the blacksmiths workshops. A number of mature trees are growing on the boundary, the largest being a Moreton Bay Fig at least 80 years old.

Platforms

thumb|An aerial view of the above-ground platforms, April 2016; intercity and regional platforms are pictured in the foreground while suburban platforms are visible to the left in the background

thumb|The underground platforms of 24 and 25, July 2008

Central serves all Sydney Trains suburban lines except for the T5 Cumberland Line. The platforms are numbered from 1 to 25, with 1 being the westernmost platform and 25 being one of the easternmost. Platforms 1 to 14 are above ground terminating at the Sydney Terminal Building; Platforms 16 to 23 are above ground and serve the through-running suburban station to the east of the main building; Platforms 24 and 25 are underground and serve the Eastern Suburbs Railway; Platforms 26 and 27 serve the Metro North West & Bankstown Line and are located underground beneath Platforms 13 and 14.

thumb|The underground Sydney Metro platforms 26 and 27, August 2024The numbers for Platforms 26 and 27 formerly referred to never-completed "ghost platforms", formerly used for archival document storage and now contains Sydney Metro communications and power rooms. These platforms are located underground, above Platforms 24 and 25; all four platforms were constructed as part of the original vision for the Eastern Suburbs Railway. Platform 15 was permanently closed in September 2018 to facilitate Sydney Metro construction and the expansion of adjacent platforms.