Past/Lives Flashback #2: Platforms 26 & 27, Central Station – Sydney, NSW
Original article: Platforms 26 & 27, Central Station – Sydney, NSW
The mystery of the ghost platforms hidden within Central Station continues to fascinate nearly 35 years after their inception, but since I still haven’t been in there to see them, there’s not much new to add. They’re still not being used for anything important, and there are still no plans to use them in the future.
Platform 27, 1998. Image courtesy David Johnson / Railpage.org.au.
But Central Station’s secrets extend far deeper than just these two platforms, so why don’t we dive into that instead? Bring a shovel.
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.
Past/Lives of the Near Future 