Railway Station, Hobart

The sandstone building here was once the Hobart station for the railway. It has now been incorporated into the headquarters of the ABC in Hobart. This picture shows the same area of the Domain before the railway and the station were built. This is one of the earliest panoramic photographs taken of Hobart in about 1858. The building on the hill on the right was the Hobart High School at that time. Here, taken from a different angle, you can see the extent of the railway complex on that land about twenty five years later. The main railway line from Hobart to the North was opened in 1876. The railway not only improved access for goods to the wharf area but there were passenger services, cutting the time of a trip to Launceston from at least 15 hours on a horse-drawn coach such as the one shown in these pictures, to seven hours on the train. Regular passenger trains ran for about a hundred years ending in 1976. Falling demand and improvements to the roads made the passenger train uneconomic. Heavy goods and containers are still transported direct to the docks but this too is under threat. Royal tours have given Tasmanians the opportunity to decorate the city in honour of their guests. When the Duke of York visited in 1901 to celebrate Federation not only did they give the station building a temporary face-lift to make it resemble a castle but they also put up impressive arches. This one on the route from the station to Government House was promoting the apple industry with hundreds of apples used in its creation