Merlynston railway station, Melbourne

MelbourneRailwayStation1
NAME=Merlynston


CODE=MYN
DISTANCE=13.7 km
LINES=Upfield
PLATFORMS=2
TRACKS=2
STATUS=Unmanned station
FACILITIES= [http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/stop/view/19963 Link]
TIMETABLES= [http://www.metlinkmelbourne.com.au/stop/view/19963#lineInformation Link]
MELWAY=
ZONE=1+2 overlap

Merlynston is a railway station in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It is located on the Upfield line in the suburb of Coburg North.

It is 13.7 km from Flinders Street Station, and is located in the overlap between Metcard ticketing Zone 1 & Zone 2.

Facilities

The station is unstaffed, with few facilities. It is located on an island platform with a small pebblemix station building at the Upfield end of the station. It has a Safety Zone on both platforms, in addition to Metcard ticketing equipment located at the entrance, adjacent to the disused booking window. There are newspaper dispensers for both The Herald Sun and The Age next to the ticket machine, but no-one seems to fill them anymore.

The station also has decent sized car parking facilities and connecting bus services, and therefore is reasonably well patronised. It is located very close to Sydney Road, from which Route 530 and 531 depart. The 534 bus (to Glenroy station on the Craigieburn line) departs from the east of the station, alternately from Lorenson Avenue and Merlyn Street.

There is a small shopping strip to the west side of the station and also to the east in Sydney Rd, being located in a primarily residential area. Commuters often drive to Merlynston from further down the line to take advantage of the cheaper Zone 1 Metcard fares. The station has unusual handrails all along the island platform, and patrons must use a pedestrian crossing to access the platforms.

A small semi-enclosed waiting room is located at the southern end of the building. There was formerly a level crossing located at Shorts Road, south of Merlynston, which was closed in the late 1990s, and made into a dead-end street on either side of the railway line. Until duplication to Gowrie in 1998, the railway line north of the station had only a single track (except for the island platform at Gowrie, which had two platforms but one platform was a dead-end platform, meaning trains couldn't cross at Gowrie, so trains had to cross by Merlynston).

History

Merlynston station opened on October 8 1889 as "North Coburg". It closed in 1903, and reopened in 1914. It was renamed "Merlynston" in 1922. [ [http://www.vicsig.net/index.php?page=infrastructure&name=Merlynston VICSIG Infrastructure - Merlynston] ]

References

MelbourneStations
Line=Upfield line
Here=Merlynston
Previous=Batman
Next=Fawkner