Tatiara District Councillor Natalie Moore calls for urgent action for ‘tired’ railway station
With the future of the Overland train service secured, a regional councillor is calling for urgent action to fix the dilapidated railway station that welcomes visitors from Victoria.
Mount Gambier
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With money coming in to keep the Overland train service between Melbourne and Adelaide running, a regional councillor is calling for urgent repairs for the dilapidated Bordertown Railway Station.
As the first stop into South Australia for visitors coming from Melbourne, passengers are welcomed into the state with a heritage listed station boasting boarded up windows and open drains.
Tatiara District Councillor Natalie Moore said there was no way the heritage listed site would have fallen into such a state of disrepair if it was located in the city.
“This is what people see when they go past on the train — it’s not really the best look for Bordertown,” she said.
“It’s uninviting — we’ve got a log yard on one side and the railway station on the other.
“The railway station is what made Bordertown what it is and I feel we do need to be looking after that heritage.”
The Victorian government provided $11.5m over three years and South Australia spent $1.4m over four years to ensure the future of the Overland service.
Though this is a state held asset, Federal MP Barker Tony Pasin reached out to Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis calling for “urgent action” on Tuesday.
Speaking to The Advertiser Mr Pasin said the station looked like it had been “abandoned a decade ago” with “boarded up windows” starting to rot away.
“It’s a horrible entry statement,” Mr Pasin said.
Independent Member for MacKillop Nick McBride said the station had been “tired” for years.
Mr McBride said the problem was further complicated because of its heritage listing with older buildings sometimes requiring
“When you bring into the fact that it is a historical building and as of I age, everything becomes a lot lot harder to do,” he said.
As an example Mr McBride said sometimes a simple electrical upgrade could mean “the whole building has to be rewired” to ensure it meets standards.
Transport Minister Tom Koutsantonis slammed Mr Pasin for playing politics and said the government was urgently working towards addressing any issues.
“A letter from Mr Pasin raising this issue was emailed to my office at 11.11am yesterday, the same day he spoke to media about his concerns,” Mr Koutsantonis said.
“There is no record of him having raised this issue with my office previously.
“I have asked my department to urgently assess the Bordertown Railway Station and ensure any issues are immediately addressed.”
The Overland trains future has mostly been kept alive by the Victorian state government after the 2018 Liberal South Australian state government cut its $330,000 subsidy.
Mr Koutsantonis said the re-elected Labor government had restored funding for the “Overland that Mr Pasin’s Liberal colleagues in the former Marshall government withdrew”.
About 18,000 passengers have already booked travel on The Overland this year, up from about 17,388 for the whole of last year, and just over 4000 in 2021.
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