The changing face of the former Spencer St Railway Station

Why the old historical station was renamed?

Spencer St Station was renamed Southern Cross Station after it was redesigned.

There are simply too many diesel trains using the station and many sit idling at the platforms waiting to depart. This is highly unusual for a european railway station where electrification covers much of the network the trains use. The problem at Southern Cross is very much the making of poor planning and the government unwilling to move the network into the 21st century.

From my youth I never understood why or reasoning behind it

In the years before they decided to build the new station as we know stand to day, did the designers ever consider that the design they drafted for the newer station building etc ever look at and question why the older former design was designed better for the older diesel haul train technology?

Why not build a modernised version of it?

As it seems that this odd roof design was more suited in more advanced nations with electrified technology for their railway and trains both short and longer distance  operations.

I agree with the Author’s observations of this issues:

From my humble observation as a train traveller as the author If overseas countries and some second world nations can introduce fit for purpose trains and systems for both long and shorter distance travel so can Australia!

Not only the air quality is issue for the people and staff working there at Southern Cross, but the constant noise from those newer trains standing there idling away as stated in the article….

Been in out that station and seated there hours before my trains departure time. The noise from those Vlocity trains Idling away whist stationary when several of them are present is undercover is very noisy. I will not be surprised if the staff and worker in the shops areas and some passengers could suffer some sort of hearing damage from the constant noise lengthy exposure undercover!

The Air quality set my chronic breathing allergies off terrible so I am very choosy where I sit whist there if I have sit in not so well sheltered areas, so be it!

But after a stinking hot weather period I noticed the air is very still and stuffy in the station covered areas during the hot summer months…..

I was most surprised that those air extraction systems they later installed in the roof didn’t do it job, it like a whirly fan thing like some workshops have……I wonder if a exhaust extraction fan system that sucks the fumes out would be more successful in solving this air veneration issue?

For example: the old Indian Pacific Lounge Car named:  Sliver City after Broken Hill which was famous for it Sliver Mines….

The carriage or Lounge Car “Sliver City” was built with smoker capsule and the smoker could smoke on board without disturbing the other passengers on board as I believe the carriage was designed with dual air conditioning system so the smoker air with extraction fan sucked the smoke out of the carriage are in the capsule so when smokers went out the smell of their smoke would not spread  in the rest of the carriage!

This was long before the railway operators banned smoking on board those longer distance interstate trains, as I was lucky enough to experience this change of design in the lounge cars on the Indian Pacific and see it this before Aus National Rail was sold off or privatised to Australian Operators as when I first went on it 1993 it had no such feature, just a upright piano in the lounge car!

If I recall rightly Hannan, Nullarbor and another I can’t remember it’s name  was one these specially designed carriages with these unique features.

I remember riding these lovely trains from Sydney, Perth, Adelaide and Melbourne when NR near it’s end and changed hands to “Great Southern Railway” before.

Adelaide to Melbourne was funny time near the end as they sometimes mixed up the carriages, The Overland Lounge with a Indian Pacific Lounge or The Ghan!

The Old Overland Club was the only carrige I know that was not fitted with the smoking Capsule amongst that lot of Lounge Cars as I remember on those days I went in the Overland Club Car half the car and half for the smokers!

Although I sat in non smoking areas of the carriage I always return to my carriage stinking of cigarette smoke!

I missed riding those trains…..