A rich railway history

From information compiled for us by Lloyd Matthews.

When the railway reached Wodonga from Melbourne in 1873 the first station building, which included refreshment room and dining room, was a temporary structure. It was 300 ft. long and was removed and taken to Beechworth when the new station was built in 1874 by contractor J. Richardson.

The Goods shed was 100 feet long built by Frew & Hill in 1873. One year later it was extended by 150 feet by James Nation.

The original coal stage was replaced in 1899 with a hopper elevator coaling plant erected by Gibson Battle & Co. Melbourne in 1927. The 250-ton coal hopper remained until 1965.

In 1904 a 50 feet turntable was provided but was made redundant two years later and replaced by a reversing loop (in what later became Reid Street) but was generally referred to as ‘the triangle’. To turn a big engine, such as Heavy Harry, the engine went on the Albury line, reversed across where the level crossing is in Reid Street, and then came forward on a line (removed in 2002/3) which was the third side of the triangle and was in front of what is now the RSL and Vietnam Veterans buildings, (the latter had been the local Railways Institute) which took it into the Wodonga Station. That system was decommissioned on 28th April 1963 and replaced with the 70 feet turntable behind the Carriers Arms Hotel at the western end of Bond Street.

Signal boxes:

  • Signal Box A at the south end of the old Wodonga Railway Station platform, and had in 1898 an interlocking machine. Signal Box B stood on the eastern side of the High Street level crossing and a big wheel closed and opened the gates. On 17th September, 1961, it was replaced by boom gates and flashing lights.
  • B Box was demolished on May 10th, 1964, when the standard gauge line to Albury was completed.
  • A third signal box, Box C, was at the old coal siding for the Bandiana line. It was installed on 21st September 1941 but did not come into use until 22nd March 1942.