Oatley railway station is a heritage-listed suburban railway station located on the South Coast line, serving the Sydney suburb of Oatley. The station is served by Sydney Trains T4 Eastern Suburbs & Illawarra Line services. It was designed and built by the NSW Government Railway and from 1905 to 1992. It is also known as the Oatley Railway Station group. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
Oatley is notable as the end point of the first section of track to be electrified for regular passenger services, with services from Central commencing on 1 March 1926. Historically, some services used to terminate at Oatley before returning north; this is no longer the case but the points remain in place. During major service disruptions, services sometimes terminate at Oatley using these points.
In January 2017 an upgrade to the station was opened, including a new overhead footbridge with lifts.
History
The Oatley area was named after James Oatley, who was granted in the area, called Needwood Forest, in 1833. Oatley never built on the grant and it passed to his third son after his death in 1839, who sold the land to Charles Cecil Griffiths in 1881. The property extended from Gungal Bay on the western edge to the later Boundary and Hurstville Roads.
Access from one side of the line to the other was initially via a series of overbridges at various locations along the line. In some localities, these were too far apart, and construction of a series of brick arch subways was begun around 1905 and completed during the 1920s. Construction was in brickwork due to the large number of nearby brickworks. The 1905 brick arched Mulga Road underbridge at Oatley was designed by Per way Branch staff, New South Wales Government Railways. The platform is reached via a subway stair leading off Mulga Road which is part of the underbridge. The underbridge has a semi-circular brick barrel arch spanning over a two-lane roadway, and is thought to be the second largest brick arch underbridge in the NSW rail system. The centre of the bridge is now roofed, between the railway tracks (over the subway) however was unroofed in 1943.