Centenary for Geraldton Railway Station

A familiar landmark is 100 years old this week, the event receiving as little fanfare as when it first began operations a century ago.

Geraldton Railway Station on Chapman Road is the third building to perform that function.

The first was constructed in 1878 as a single-storey building with a second storey added later.

It still stands in Marine Terrace and after a recent refurbishment is now the city’s visitor centre.

After the discovery of gold in the Murchison, a new station was built off Durlacher Street in 1894, when the railway line was relocated from the centre of Marine Terrace to the foreshore.

Its new location was convenient to the newly-built Railway Jetty, named for the lines that ran its length, but this station was an interim solution, timber-framed and clad in weatherboard.

Something more substantial was required, more befitting the rapidly growing region, so work began in 1912 on construction of a third Geraldton station for Western Australian Government Railways.

Details of the works included the provision of “an up-to-date brick passenger station, additional goods shed and siding accommodation and a large carriage shed” to be provided, with “more convenient and increased facilities for locomotive purposes”.

The then huge sum of £63,000 is mentioned in records as the cost of the works, while the temporary second station was moved to Forrest Street, where it became the WAGR offices.

It was an important investment, but as The Geraldton Guardian reported on June 15, 1915: “Although marked by no formal ceremony, the new railway station at Geraldton has been opened, the first train, the one for the Murchison, being despatched on Sunday night.”

Geraldton Railway Station worked through the years as steam trains disappeared to be replaced by diesel, and road buses began taking over from trains, until the last passenger train to Perth departed on July 25, 1975.

The transfer of Westrail operations to Meru in 1989 saw the closure of the Chapman Road station, which stood forlorn and forgotten, though not by all.

In 2000 it was purchased by real estate valuer Colin Dymond, who in the past 15 years has invested in the old building, which is on the State Register of Heritage Places. Still marking its place at the station is the zero-mile peg, the point from which distances from Geraldton to any point in WA were measured.

With the 150m platform transforming every Sunday into a bustling market and the station now home to seven different businesses, Mr Dymond’s faith in the future of Geraldton Railway Station seems to be bearing fruit.