Werris Creek railway station is a heritage-listed railway station located at the junction of the Main Northern, Mungindi and Binnaway–Werris Creek lines (Keilbahnhof) in Werris Creek of New South Wales, Australia. The station serves the town of Werris Creek and was built between 1877 and 1880. The station is also known as Werris Creek Railway Station, yard group and movable relics. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999.
History The story of the railway line across Parry Shire began in the early 1870s when the construction of the Great Northern Line had stalled at the foot of the Liverpool Plains. From 1876 the line pressed on over the range and down onto the plains below. It was in 1877 that the parliament of Sydney decided to build a branch line from the major rail trunk in the direction of Gunnedah. The branch was to start in an open paddock owned by John Single near Werris Creek, and thus the town of Werris Creek had its beginning. It was the first railway town in New South Wales starting from a broad-acre site and developing exclusively to service the railways.
It remained a railway town for the next century and a quarter, with railway work being the overwhelming form of employment. The original station at Werris Creek was about half a kilometre south of the current junction. However, with the opening of the line to Gunnedah and the splitting of the mail trains from Newcastle at Werris creek, it was necessary to have a station nearer to the actual branching line. The platform of the new station was finished in 1879. From the new platform was to rise a magnificent station complex. It was to be a remarkable building that could easily grace a city, a monument to railway confidence and bureaucratic power, yet, incongruously, a lonely citadel in the middle of the bush. The station consisted of a refreshment room and station building. On completion of these two buildings in 1885, a town began to develop on the eastern side of the railway line.
In 1925, the office of the District Superintendent of Railways was moved from Murrurundi to Werris Creek and a second story was added to the station building to accommodate new staff. Werris Creek remained an important rail junction until the advent of diesel and electric trains in the 1960s. Together with the decline in rail travel and freight, and the economic rationalising of the 1980s and 1990s, the town of Werris Creek lost much of its importance as a railway hub.EJE, 2001
Werris Creek was a purpose-built rail centre and as such, claims to be Australia's first specific railway town. It dates to 1877 when the NSW Government decided that the Great Northern Line needed a depot and junction from where branches would run to the west and north-west, thus helping to open up and serve the rich pastoral areas further inland. Werris Creek became a major junction, with the Main Northern, Mungindi and Binnaway lines all intersecting in the region. It was the first, and remains the last, railway town in New South Wales. In 1913, a locomotive depot opened with a roundhouse built in 1920.
An isolated bushland spot was chosen where the northern line at that time cut through George Single's paddock, halfway between Quirindi and Tamworth. This was called Werris Creek, a variation on the Aboriginal name for the district, Weia Weia, meaning "stop here, rest awhile". The town became the busiest rural freight base in the state as well as a key passenger junction as goods and people alike joined or left the main Sydney line destined to or coming from places like Gunnedah, Narrabri, Moree and many similar settlements that were emerging.
By the early 1880s, a magnificent railway station had appeared at Werris Creek. The NSW State Rail Authority Heritage Unit described it as "a remarkable building that could easily grace a city ...yet, incongruously, a lonely citadel in the middle of the bush". It boasted an impressive refreshment room in the Victorian Free Classical style built of rich, red bricks in tuck-pointed Flemish bond with crisp stucco embellishments, pronounced cornices with paired brackets and moulded, grouped windows. A grand (red) cedar staircase led to a floor of bedrooms for those travellers who had time to sleep between connections. It was "not unlike a city bank...until it was covered with its first of many layers of soot". The late 1880s heritage-listed station building was designed by John Whitton and is the third largest in New South Wales.
In 1896, a locomotive shed formerly in use in Gunnedah was erected opposite the station. In 1917, a 10 stall roundhouse was erected one kilometre south of the station, with a further five stalls added in 1920. In November 1954, the turntable was replaced by a example to allow 60 class locomotives to be turned."Locomotive Depot No 9: Werris Creek" Roundhouse July 1986 pages 4-28
Eventually, a cross-country line was built from Binnaway near Coonabarabran to Werris Creek, thus linking the northern line to both the Main Western and Main Southern, lines. The population soared to 2,500 as workers flocked to staff and service the countless trains that came and went day and night and Werris Creek became known as the "town that never sleeps".
For approximately 70 years, Werris Creek was the largest railway centre in northern New South Wales, the depot alone employing 800 people. From the 1970s, the railway began to decline, but it still remains an important part of the network, with Pacific National still using the depot. The introduction of diesel locomotives and centralisation of the rail system led to the demise of the complex's importance. The jobs of tradesmen servicing steam trains disappeared. The population halved as rail jobs fell from 800 to 100. Town morale sank as its heart and soul began to disappear. Even though passenger and freight trains still passed through Werris Creek, as they still do, it seemed destined to become yet another country town fading into oblivion.
Monument and museum
In 1989, a committee led by Chris Holley – a former porter, shunter, guard and controller, strongly supported by a band of fellow retired railmen such as veteran yard master Les Brown – vowed that Werris Creek would not die. Their determination led to the acceptance of a plan envisaged by Dr Stuart Sharp, of the former NSW State Rail Authority Heritage Unit, involving creation of an Australian Railway Monument. The high stainless steel sculptures this comprises depict a fettler, shunter and firemen, a signalman, gatekeeper and flag lady. The sculptor is Dominique Sutton who also worked on Sydney Olympic Park. They look down on a specially landscaped amphitheatre beside the railway station. Memorial walls complement the amphitheatre and contain more than 2,400 names of all those railway people who had lost their lives either at work or from injuries received at work.
While funding came principally from the NSW Government ($1.3m), some 40 townsfolk – mostly former railway men and women pledged themselves as volunteers to run the complex. It opened on 1 October 2005 as the Australian Railway Monument and the Rail Journeys Museum and since has averaged more than 10,000 visitors per annum. The museum contains a wide range of memorabilia depicting country railways' past and in the future aims to present a comprehensive account of Australia's railway history.Dunn, 2009, 98-9 An historic display depicts the history of Werris Creek as the first railway town in Australia from the age of steam through to the modern day diesel.
Services Werris Creek is served by NSW TrainLink's daily Northern Tablelands Xplorer service. The service from Sydney divides at platform 1 before continuing to Armidale and Moree.
Description MAJOR STRUCTURES – Managed by RailCorp Station Building – type 5, first class (1880, 1923) Railway Refreshment Rooms (1885, 1912) houses the Rail Journeys Museum Luggage Room (1902) Signal Box (1925) Platform face (1880) Footbridge (1893) Australian Railway Monument (2005)
MAJOR STRUCTURES – Managed by ARTC Station Master's Residence (1913) Workshop, and Staff Hut Former gas retort building, Down side Former electricity generator building Down side
STATION BUILDING, LUGGAGE ROOM AND RRR (1880 – 1923) The station and RRR buildings present as grand two-storey Victorian Free Classical buildings. The original facades of the 1885 buildings remain largely intact. The facade expresses the load bearing-wall construction of painted stone and a rich red face brickwork. Brickwork is Flemish bond with white tuck pointing. All stone quoins and timber detailing are painted in a golden yellow. Most windows on both buildings are double hung with single panes of glass. Original doors remain and are generally four – panelled timber doors with fanlights, and stone architraves. A parapet conceals the roof of the original RRR building and features a decorative entablature, two urns and a projecting cornice with classical consoles. A timber verandah with simple timber detailing and timber balustrade is also located on the southern entry to the RRR building.
A deep verandah roofed in corrugated sheet runs along the rail platforms and along the east and west elevation of the station building. The verandah was extended in 1892 along the east of the RRR building. The verandah features decorative timber rafters supported on slender round cast iron columns with cast iron brackets.
The first floor storey extension of the kitchen in the 1911 building and the 1960 southern extension to the station building use a similar red brick. The roof is a simple half gabled (gabled hip) roof with exposed rafter. The first floor storey extensions of the station building in 1923 and 1939 are of a Georgian revival style and use a different light brown brick. The roof is concealed by a simple geometric parapet.
A later fibro sheet bridge connects the two buildings. Interior fabric of both buildings have been largely altered. An original timber staircase, cast iron columns, and timber ceiling remain intact in the RRR building.
SIGNAL BOX (1925) The signal box is a simple timber structure with rusticated weatherboards and a simple gable roof. The northern facade features a single timber panelled door. The other three facades feature three-paned timber sliding windows with a three-paned fanlight. Internally the signal box retains signal equipment and the manual switch for the railway tracks.
PLATFORM (1880)
STATION MASTER'S RESIDENCE (1913) The SM's residence was most likely built for the night Station Master in 1913. The building is a simple Federation gable-roofed weatherboard cottage that features simple detailing and a front verandah on the north side. The residence has double hung multi-pane windows, timber window awnings and decorative timber valances at the ends of the verandah. It also has modern pipe columns in the place of the original timber verandah posts. A later fibro sheet extension has been added to the western facade. Much of the original interior detail remains intact, such as timber doors, architraves, cornices and fireplaces.
FOOTBRIDGE (1893) A simple girder structure made from old rails. Its main feature is the joining of the old rails head to head so the rail feet form flanges (I-beams).
MOVEABLE ITEMS Wall clock, large, 0.5/2.4/0.3, (AC02) refreshment room Seat, 1.8/0.9/0.9, (LA03) refreshment room Rotating chair patterned seat, (CA05), platform store Rotating chair patterned seat, (CA06), platform store Office desk, 1.5/1.0/0.7, recessed handles, (DA07), refreshment room.
LANDSCAPE The area to the north of the RRR today comprises the Australian Railway Monument, a bitumen-paved car park and an Australian native plant garden on the eastern (main platform) side. The plant types in the garden include a predominance of grevilleas. This new garden has been developed over the past decade with volunteer labour.
Condition