Travel Australia

Classic Railway Stations: Seymour, Victoria

Seymour railway station is located on the North East line in Victoria, and serves the town of Seymour. When the station opened on 20 November 1872, only a single platform was provided, with temporary timber station buildings and three tracks. To support the station, a number of Departmental Residences were erected by the Victorian Railways to house railway employees and their families. Around the start of the 20th century there were 29, increasing to 82 by the 1960s. They have since been sold to private owners.



Although the station looks like one large building from Station Street, it is made up of numerous smaller buildings behind a common façade. The refreshment room is a grand two-storey building, while the ticket office and waiting room is a collection of smaller buildings. Though the standard gauge line to Albury, which opened in 1962, passed the station, a platform was not provided on the line until 1974. It was only one carriage long and was not used for regular services, being removed in 2008 when Platform 1 was converted to standard gauge. The station was altered to the current interior layout in 1997, when a general refurbishment was carried out, with the parcels office being converted into a waiting room and toilets.



A railway refreshment room was opened at Seymour station in 1873, replacing the one at Kilmore East. It later became the largest country refreshment rooms in the state. By 1875 the room was serving at least six trains per day, with 15 minutes permitted for passengers to eat. In 1884 the rooms were expanded with new buffet and dining rooms. Buffet patrons ordered and collected their food from a counter and ate elsewhere, while dining room patrons sat down and received table service They were originally managed by a leasee, but were taken over by the Victorian Railways in 1919 in preparation for the creation of their Refreshment Services Branch in 1920.

The rooms catered for 150 standing in the buffet, and 112 seated in the dining room, and was staffed at its peak by 34 employees who lived in a cottage complex near the station. The rooms closed on 8 October 1981 when on-train catering was rolled out to all trains passing through the station. The buffet room was refurbished in 1993–1995 for community uses, but the dining room is used for storage.



The locomotive depot at Seymour existed from the opening of the station until 1993. It was the home of the S class 4-6-2 Pacifics as used on the Spirit of Progress. The depot was originally located just to the north of the station, with a two locomotive shed and a 42 ft turntable. It was moved to the current location in 1889 where a new 9 track roundhouse-style shed was erected in timber and corrugated iron, along with a coal stage and brick offices. In 1902 it was extended to 13 bays, and in 1910 to twenty bays that almost made a complete circle.



At the peak of operation in June 1950, 245 railway men worked at Seymour Locomotive Depot, made up of 60 drivers, 57 firemen, 41 cleaners, 14 mechanics, 53 shed staff, 9 rail motor staff, and 11 train examiners. By 1958 the number of staff had declined to 181 with the arrival of diesel locomotives, the last steam locomotive housed there withdrawn in 1966.

Much of the roundhouse was removed in 1961 in conjunction with construction of the standard gauge line alongside, with the rest of the roundhouse removed in May 1971 leaving just workshop buildings. By the 1980s locomotives were no longer based at the depot. It was officially closed on 8 April 1993. Today it used to stable V/Line trains, as well as being the home of the Seymour Railway Heritage Centre, a railway preservation group dedicated to the restoration and preservation of locomotives and rolling stock as used on the railways of Victoria.


The British steam locomotive 4472 Flying Scotsman arrives at Seymour in 1989

Brief History

Seymour has always been an important railway centre. Although the actual junction was situated at Mangalore, the next station north, Seymour was the effective junction of the two main trunks of the north east: along the Goulburn Valley to Tocumwal and the main NE line to Wodonga. Seymour was also situated at the foot of the Great Dividing Range and consequently goods trains were re-marshalled in both directions to maximise the loads.

Seymour station was opened with the line in 1872 and became a Staff station when Staff and Ticket working was introduced into Victoria in 1873. Duplication from Melbourne arrived at the South side of the Goulburn River in 1886 but got no further for 45 years due to the expense of duplicating the bridges over the river. The resulting short, busy, single line section received the first Tablet instruments in Victoria in 1892.

In 1925 the single line section was provided with power signaling. Most of the yard roads were extended southwards in 1929; this allowed Seymour to handle the longer goods trains resulting from operating the new X class locomotives to Benalla. The World War II saw the provision of a second bridge across the Goulburn River and the duplication was extended to the start of Seymour yard. Duplication was not completed through to the platforms until 1961, when, for one and a half months the double line was continuous between Melbourne and Mangalore.

After this, the Up line over the Goulburn River was taken out of use and converted to standard gauge. Technically the end of the double line, once again on the south bank of the Goulburn, was worked by Dysart signal box.