Final Days for Old Lilydale Station.
Once a masterpiece of the Victorian Railways used to be the junction to the scenic Healesville Line and the Warburton Line that would be the gateway to the Yarra Valley. Like the other stations that had featured Refreshment Rooms, the station had carried on its tradition of being a refreshment room until the end of July 2021, with an uncertain future.
Opening on 1 December 1882, Lilydale station was the new terminus of the extended line from Camberwell. The station building that was built was a small country station that was only serving the Healesville Line. In 1901, the Warburton Line would open, making Lilydale Station a hub for freight and passenger services which were all steam-hauled until electrification came further down the track.
It wouldn’t be until 1914, the introduction of the “new” (1914) Lilydale Station building which included the Refreshment Rooms. This included a large cellar, a separate bar and a main refreshment room with serving counters.
Lilydale at the time was slowly becoming a major tourism hub, playing its role as an interchange with day-tripper passengers wanting to continue onwards to Healesville and Waburton respectively. The Refreshment Rooms were privately operated until early 1919, where the Victorian Railway took over and eventually served up “Counter Meals”. The rooms would be served with a staff of six or seven
By this time, the north and to the west of the station had extensive infrastructure, a servicing yard for locomotives and a freight yard to allow provisioning for these services. As part of these measures, a new signal box was established.
In October 1925, electrification reached out to Lilydale Station, being the final terminus stop for electric services and change for steam-hauled (later diesel rail motor) services onwards to Healesville and Warburton.
Lilydale would see a wide variety of motive power, from the steamers like
- A2 Steam Locomotives (until 1925)
- D3 and K regularly, hauling wooden ‘W’ passenger cars or Goods.
- Taits, Swing Door and Harris Trainsets
- to modernized branch line T class or Y Class diesel-electric locomotives, DERMS and Walker Railmotors (until 1980–the 1990s)
Lilydale would serve its purpose, being an interchange to these two lines until the demise of both branch lines (Warburton in 1960 and Healesville in 1980). The signal box was removed around the 1960s. Since then, the once buzzing hub for freight slowly faded away with many parts of the yard being rationalized.
The refreshment rooms closed in 1978 but were reopened sometime later for the use of a pub which was operated by Victorian Railways Institute.
The terminus station powers on until today, providing the Yarra Valley region with a way to connect to Melbourne and was only recently found out that it was the only station to have a station pub open on Friday evenings (before it was closed). (Someone on TikTok found it interestingly).
V/Line still operates to the station but in the form of a coach to Mansfield, following the much of the old Healesville Line.
The old Lilydale Station is planned to be formally closed on 10th September 2021, with the following being proposed as the last trains.
- TDN: 3847, Last train arriving in 2016pm, should be Platform 1.
- TDN: 3240, Last train departing at 2021pm, bound for Parliament Station.
This ‘should’ be operated by an allocated Ringwood Group Xtrapolis 100. This will ultimately be the last train sealing the faith and history of the old station.
Well, as the saying goes, modernity and the future comes quickly.
In 2019, Lilydale is set to change for the future as a way of improving a way of life as there’s the growing dependence on the Maroondah Highway which often has been called the gateway to the Yarra Valley. Without the Lilydale bypass, the highway has been always a choke point for the town and the railway is considered as a dividing part of Lilydale.
It was announced that a level crossing removal project would take place, and establish a new elevated station. The new elevated station is situated further south of the existing station, to create a new plaza-like area for the community, making it easier for passengers to interchange and interact with the local retail shops.
*editor note: perfection, just outside a great smokery cafe :P
The station was designed in a way to compliment the surrounding community as reflected in the industrial but yet modern look to illustrate and highlight brickworks and quarry as the LXRA has selected materials like rocks and colourbond contrasts against the concrete and brown steel cladding.
Somewhat interesting how alterations are going to be implemented as the heritage-listed building is planned to be retained for heritage purposes but proposes to reuse the building as a community centre of some sort (this is still quite vague) as there have been speculations of the existing railway pub that will be kicked out. I personally hope the pub does stay, it's a piece of railway history in there with various artifacts.
Whatever happens, it will be an end of a chapter for the 1914 building, serving its purpose as a railway station but it would still play a valuable part in allowing Lilydale to become what it is today.
Update: a mistake in the closure date, thank you to those who pointed it out!
