Dubbo station is a fine stone building, capped with a slate roof. Its Victorian-era 'Great Western Railway' character oozes from this plan of the station building, and was equally apparent 124 years later when I photographed it.
I have written previously about just how cramped things got during busy times at Dubbo with its single mainline configuration and I could never understand why the Railways didn't have a plan to get things sorted. Turns out they did. Once again, thank to my 'sauce' I have been able to peruse a September 1922 plan of proposed changes to Dubbo's yard layout. There is a lot to absorb - like the complete disappearance of the loco depot, which I suspect was planned to head east (or west) away from town in a manner that depots in Lithgow, Bathurst, Goulburn and Junee headed out of town. But that is for another blog post.
In this short post I would like to focus on what was planned for the station precinct, which can be best summed up as a radical rethink. The basic plan was to reconfigure the station to something more typical of a dual mainline station, complete with a large island platform facing the existing platform, a large building on the platform and a pedestrian overhead bridge for access. Here is what was planned... to make it easier to read I have outlined the existing platform in blue, the planned additional platform in red and the pedestrian bridge in yellow.
In other words, a completely new modelling proposition!
Although it is indistinct unless you enlarge it, but the plan proposed an A9 station building. These are the large brick dual-sided buildings, with parcels office, booking office, waiting room and lavatories. Something quite out of character for Dubbo but it would have revolutionised the handling of mail, small freight and passengers at the location had it gone ahead. And made it much easier for station staff for the next 50 years!
OK, writing history and modelling history is usually about what happened rather than what could have happened, but if this plan had proceeded the city of Dubbo would have developed quite differently to what it did, in so many ways).
Back to studying plans!
Don
