Canterbury Services/Style Tiles – Canterbury, NSW
For all those waiting for some style to be forcibly injected into this blog, wait no more. Looks like someone took an old service station, ‘Canterbury Services’, and added some tiles. Very clever.
Those two gents in the driveway look a bit hot and bothered about having their photo taken, don’t they?
Robbos Spares/Lightsounds – Campsie, NSW
Image by Andrew Martyn.
This Canterbury Road address may be called Lightsounds now, but the sign above it still features the bizarre mascot of Robbos(sic) Spares, a spare car parts company. According to Robbos’s stunning website, Robbos set up shop here in 1984.
Robbos Spares, Canterbury Road Campsie, 2010. Image from Robbos.com.
By now you’ve got that feeling like the word Robbos doesn’t make sense anymore, don’t you? Or is it just me?
Platforms 26 & 27, Central Station – Sydney, NSW
Sunday Mirror, 17 May 1959.
The story of Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs railway is a long one, and we won’t be going down that tunnel today. Instead, we’ll be going down this one.
The escalator to platforms 24 & 25, Central Station, 2012.
The reason this set of escalators down to the Eastern Suburbs and Illawarra line trains at Central Station is so long is because it’s actually going down two levels, not one. When the Eastern Suburbs platforms were being built throughout the 1960s and 1970s, construction crews made concessions for four extra platforms, not just the two that exist today. 26 & 27 lie above 24 & 25.
The doors leading to platforms 26 & 27, Central Station, 2012.
The plan was that platforms 24 and 25 would service the Illawarra and the Eastern Suburbs lines, and above them, platforms 26 & 27 would someday cater to an airport line. The platforms were built, but the planned airport line never materialised, and since 1979 the platforms have sat derelict. In fact, even when an airport line was built in the leadup to the Olympics in 2000, the platforms weren’t used – the reason being that modern trains were too heavy for the loadbearing capabilities of the platforms. Many photos exist online of these platforms, but since 26 & 27 are not accessible to the general public (with terrorism fears cited as the reason, because terrorists want to blow up empty train platforms), they won’t be appearing here. What’s interesting is the evidence of the platforms’ existence that is readily available, such as this:
Control panel in the lift for platforms 24 & 25, Central Station, 2012.
But shhh! Don’t tell anyone, it’s a secret!
ANNUAL UPDATE: One year doesn’t seem to have made a difference to the future of these dead platforms.
Old Advertising – Dulwich Hill, NSW
Be Seen?
Do as I say, not as I do.
Belfield Hotel/Nothing – Belfield, NSW
Belfield Hotel, 2012.
Built in 1931, the Belfield Hotel has seen better days. Specifically, open ones. For many years now, this pub has sat closed. Eerily, the front bar still has all the chairs, pool tables and stools set up. Glasses still sit on the bar. It’s like the patrons and Lloyd the bartender just vanished one night when the clock struck twelve.
Belfield Hotel, 1999. Photo by Jon Graham, Gdaypubs.com.au.
Around the back of the Belfield is the pub’s former gaming room, ‘Lasseter’s Lounge’, which now serves as Belfield’s watering hole. It’s more like a pokie room that also serves beer. The Canterbury Council is proposing that the building be heritage listed, and I’m presuming the proposal involves sending a copy of The Shining to the powers that be with a note attached reading ‘SEE?’
Past/Lives of the Near Future 