Historic Photo of the Day: 2025-05-16

Today's historic photo of the day: The original 1876 railway station building at Binalong, NSW, October 26 1985. Rails first reached Binalong, 354km south of Sydney on the NSW Main South railway, in 1876 when the single track line was extended from Bowning. The building seen here was built at that time and served as Binalong station until 1915. Whilst there are no tracks here today, the carriage is where the main line once ran, and the station yard formerly occupied the land at right. When the Main South line was duplicated in 1915, significant stretches, including through Binalong, were laid on completely new alignments to flatten the grades that the small locomotives of the day had to surmount. A new Binalong station was built (just out of shot here up the hill to the right) and the original track was abandoned and lifted. The old station building survived to be re-used as a private residence and it continues as such to this day. The old carriage, which appears to be a composite brake / passenger L or R type dogbox car, is still there today. I don't know how long it has been at Binalong, but some cars like that were still in active use at that time, so it may then have only recently been placed. Note also the sloping end on the platform, a feature now long-gone in favour of fenced-off abrupt ends. Presumably this survives here only because this platform was decommissioned so long ago.