The Eskbank railway station is a heritage-listed former railway station and locomotive depot on the Main Western Line at Lithgow, New South Wales, Australia. It was designed by the New South Wales Government Railways and the station building was built by contractor Goodsell & Wright. The property was added to the New South Wales State Heritage Register on 2 April 1999, with the listing alternatively describing the site as Eskbank Railway Station group and Lithgow Goods Station/ Lithgow Site S1. It is now used as a venue for community groups.
History The Great Western Railway opened through Lithgow in 1869. As part of the rail construction a road overbridge was erected at Bells Line of Road (now called Bridge Street) at Eskbank. This was the first road overpass to be built outside Sydney. It was completed on 18 October 1869 and is one of the oldest surviving overbridges on the NSW railway system. It was modified in the 1880s when the line was duplicated and modified further when the deck width was increased to accommodate modern road traffic. The latter modifications can be seen in the brick extensions to the abutments on the Down side.
In 1875 a private stopping place was developed, near Coal Stage Hill (close to the site of the former Eskbank Locomotive Depot), for the use of Thomas Brown, owner of the property called Eskbank. This stopping place was originally called 'Brown's Siding'. The name was changed to Esk Bank in August 1876.
The new Eskbank Station was opened on 1 March 1882 following the duplication of the Western Line through Lithgow in October 1880. Two side platforms were erected but only a shelter was erected on the Bourke-bound platform. The present brick and stone structure on the Sydney-bound platform was opened for the duplication.
Eskbank played a role in the extensive trials which were undertaken during the 1880s and 1890s to ascertain the most suitable types of locomotives to be used for the haulage of freight and passengers on the Blue Mountains line. One of the most significant of these trials was the comparative assessment of the British built 373 class locomotive against the American 304 class which took place in 1887. These trials established the dominance of the American design features, which were to influence locomotive acquisitions in NSW for several decades.
The small, cramped Eskbank Locomotive Depot opened in 1882 and operated until 1915 when a new locomotive depot was established about one kilometre further to the east. It existed principally to stable and service locomotives operating between Eskbank and Sydney, Eskbank and Bathurst, and Eskbank and Mudgee. It was home to locomotives which provided assistance to trains on the steep grades of the Lithgow Zig Zag, and also to locomotives that operated the many industrial and colliery sidings in the Lithgow Valley. The new loco site to the east contained a 60-foot turntable, provision for two round houses, an engine shed, stores and coal loading ramps. In addition to these structures the depot had an enginemen's barracks situated at the north-west entrance to the depot site. Archaeological remains of the 1880s locomotive shed are extant.
The goods shed at Eskbank was also erected in 1882 and its "through" design provides some evidence to a notion that it had been relocated from Wallerawang. There is an open loading platform on the west end where the first goods loading crane once stood. Parts of this platform were originally enclosed on part of the building, but the extent is not clear. The current awning was constructed c.1960 when an earlier awning was removed. The goods shed suffered a major fire in 1996. Some timber roof framing members and parts of the roof sheeting were damaged and subsequently repaired. The shed was reduced in length at this time and one timber door was salvaged and stored in the building as a spare.
The yard also features a small workshop/ gangshed ; a Avery "cart" weighbridge and shed ; a gantry crane (TC707) ; and a "stiff-legged" or "tripod" crane (T499) . There is a tank and water column south of the Inch Street bridge, thought to have been re-located in the 1990s. The items were transferred from Tarana and have no relationship to their current site where no watering facilities have stood before. The site also contains a number of ground level and sub-ground relics relating to past site activities and in particular steam railway activities. They include remains of the horse dock, loading banks, tracks and points and communications structures.
The signal box at Eskbank was opened in the same year and is the oldest signal box in use in NSW. It was built as a component of the provision of new passenger and goods facilities for Lithgow in the first half of the 1880s. It was a standard design of the period.
An overline coal stage was provided at Lithgow Coal Stage Box enabling engines to take coal on both main lines without detaching from their trains. The impending electrification to Bowenfels in 1957 saw the need for this facility greatly diminished and it was demolished, possibly prior to electrification to reduce the interaction between falling coal and the overhead wiring.
For more than four decades Eskbank was the centre of railway activities in the Lithgow Valley, and for steam operations in and out of the Valley. Trains started or terminated their journeys at Eskbank and through-trains were timed to stop there. However its importance waned in 1925 with the construction of Lithgow Station about 1 kilometre to the west. The new station was constructed in response to local agitation to establish one central station rather than to persist with two stations so close together. All buildings associated with the Locomotive Depot were removed from the site following the depot closure, and the turntable was relocated to Coolah.
The station was closed for passenger use in 1925 when the present Lithgow station was opened. Eskbank became the Lithgow Goods Depot and Station Master's headquarters from the mid-1920s until the 1980s. Since that time it has served as a depot for railway maintenance activities in the district.
The Eskbank platform building remained in use as an office for track staff until it was vacated and a lease for the premises was taken out by the State Mine Railway.
Description The complex comprises the following buildings and structures: Main Station Building (1882) Down Platform Shelter () Workshop/ Gang Shed () Weigh Bridge and Shed - 20 ton, post war (s) Goods Shed (, ) Yard Signal Box, type E, timber elevated (1885) Up Platform () Down Platform () Bridge Street Overbridge (1869) Culvert Tank and Water Column Former pedestrian entrance ramp Yard Crane- T499, (/60s) Horse Dock, () Former Locomotive Depot including Gantry Crane (7 tons)
Main station building, erected 1882 External: The 1882 station building is a fine example of the design adopted by John Whitton for stations at significant locations along the western, southern and northern railway lines during the first decades of NSW railway construction and is an example of the Victorian Italianate style. The design is based on a simple pavilion with a pitched gable roof. The principal design features, such as chimneys, windows and doors are arranged symmetrically in the classical manner, reinforced by the use of stone cornices, quoins, architraves and base course in an otherwise brick masonry building. The main façade features a pronounced breakfront with a pedimented stone window bay with large-section, sandstone architraves and finely worked sandstone dentils under the cornice of the pediment. The sandstone window bay is made up of full sections of stone in the lintel and architraves with a finely detailed dentilled cornice. The brickwork is laid in red bricks in Flemish bond and tuckpointed with fine white joints.
The northern side of the station was the principal entrance in the original design. It features the central breakfront, with the fine sandstone bay window, and originally a pair of symmetrical verandahs that protected visitors entering the station via the general waiting room. The verandahs were removed from the northern façade, and the doorways that provided access from the verandahs to the general waiting room were bricked up.
The platform awning is timber framed with columns set back from the platform edge and a large cantilever, corrugated iron roof. The supports are ornate cast iron Corinthian columns and ornate cast iron cantilever brackets. The verandah is intact in its authentic form. The main roof of the station is a hipped gable with a short transverse hipped gable over the northern breakfront and a segment in the roof over the smaller, southern breakfront. The roof is sheeted with corrugated steel. The former west end wall of the building was demolished to create a larger room by the addition of a timber extension.
Internal: The original linear floor layout arrangement remains intact. The planning arrangement is typical. The large central room was the general waiting room adjoined by a booking office with two ticket windows. The room on the Down side of the general waiting room was the telegraph office. At the Down end there were two additional rooms; a parcels office and the porter's and lamp room. On the Up end there was a ladies' waiting room with an adjoining toilet. The men's toilet and urinals were accessible from the platform. The function of the rooms changed following the conversion of the station to the goods depot and Station Master's headquarters. The traditional interior finishes are mostly plain including timber-boarded floors; plain plastered walls and ceilings; timber boarded ceilings in minor spaces and painted timber moulded joinery. These finishes remain largely intact although damaged by years of use and lack of maintenance. Fireplaces have been boarded up and the toilets fittings are relatively recent with tile wall cladding and flooring.
Down platform shelter, erected The shelter is built in a style to match the main station building. It features plain stretcher bond brickwork on the brick and stone platform base with a low-pitched hip gable roof with corrugated iron or steel sheeting. It was built with two small, enclosed rooms with an open area between. The walls of the two rooms were subsequently demolished and the whole structure was altered to be entirely open on the trackside with a single solid wall on only the south side.
Workshop / Gang shed, erected External: It is a simple timber-framed, gable roofed structure with corrugated steel roof sheeting and unpainted cliplock profile steel wall cladding that stands on the north-western side of the former station forecourt.
Internal: The interior is plain unlined and there are timber storage racks, generally relocated or reused items. There is evidence that the building was extended at the southwest end at some stage. The upturned edge on the concrete slab floor continues across the space and has evidence of external cladding.
Weighbridge and shed, erected s The AVERY weighbridge was made by W&T; Avery of Birmingham, England, and dates from the post war period. The scales were probably not enclosed originally but are now protected by a small structure clad with asbestos cement sheeting in a 1950s style. The scales are not extant.
The Goods Shed, erected s, modifications in s