Was a time I loved waiting for the train to Melbourne at Geelong station. Pop into the bar for a pot or two then clamber aboard, slot into an old red rattler cabin and nod off for the trip.

Country hospitality, staff who hadn’t lost the power of speech like their metro colleagues. Curious distractions in train stations back in the day, too.

Large weighing scales, glass boxes advertising everything from the latest shoes to Japanese travel, postage-stamp machines, even smart restaurants if you’re grey enough to recall their palm fronds, ornate surrounding and table settings.

Very civilised at Geelong, I thought. Nothing like the rough and rude suburban platforms where you needed to maintain a weather eye for skinheads and droogs offering a little Clockwork Orange recreation. Nothing like standing on a bare platform exposed to the elements, no facilities, with louts hurling stones at you from across the track.

And ticket prices seemed quite modest compared to today. Plus conductor checks were few and far between, and cancellations were non-existent other than when everyone went out on strike.

The Geelong Flier was the pride of the Victorian Railways, operating from 1926 to the mid-1960s. Oddly enough, it was introduced to replace a railway-operated bus service from Melbourne to Geelong, and to compete with a similar private bus service.

These were the days of level crossing gates manned by hand by railway staff living next door, chained to the job as permanently as any dairy farmer to his herd.

Things have changed, of course, with fluorescent new rail stock and a multitude of new level crossings such as Geelong South and Grovedale replacing the automatic barriers that replaced the manually-operated gates.

All cost a bomb but haven’t resolved glaring transport problems such as the bottleneck tunnel immediately south of Geelong station.

 

Curiously, too, it still takes about as long to get to Melbourne as it did in the 1800s, and often longer. Along the journey, sadly, station attractions have disappeared, not just the Geelong Flier. There’s precious little on offer for passengers waiting at the station these days. Apart from monitoring Musk’s X for delays, cancellations or re-routed bus connections, that is.

The sharpies are gone, a little more happily, but personal connections have been replaced by ticketing systems that allow hackers to get at the cash in your account. And a new breed of young punks terrorising travellers from one end of Geelong to the other are a long-term but little-discussed problem.

So forget any hoary notions of romance to train travel, it’s been sorely undermined. The Disorient Express is more the story these days.

Still, thanks to archives such as the Public Record Office of Victoria, you can find evidence of rail’s glory days. Nostalgic stuff, too. The cloud-shrouded old Flier grinding its way out of Melbourne, wooden gates at McKillop and Kilgour, handsome platform showcases, the rail bus at Flinders Street, Geelong station’s salubrious restaurant and lots more ….

Check it out: prov.vic.gov.au/

An edited version of this article appeared in the Geelong Advertiser 17 June 2024.