‘I was haunted by dreams of the dead station’
IT was the dispatch point for Sydney’s corpses, a mortuary station built to look like a Church where no worship ever took place. And for a young William Ohehir, it was a place that haunted his dreams for years.
NSW
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MY relatives immigrated from Ireland to Australia in the 1880s. In order to experience life as close as they could to their homeland they moved to Harden — Murrumburrah in the south of New South Wales.
Work was scarce and the children of the next generation (of which there were 10) chose to work as either teachers or on the Railways.
My grandfather chose the railways where he ended up as a steam engine driver for fifty-one years. Through him, my early years were haunted with dreams of the dead station.
He seemed to delight in telling me of transporting corpses from the country to this city station which then, and now, gives off the appearance of a Gothic church.
He would say “Billie, ye canna go past de platform without hearing de screams of de Banshee bewailing de passed children.”
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Even today I shudder when I think of the images his stories conjured up in my dreams. Much older and wiser now, I realise the dead station only has as much power as I am willing to give it.
My early years were haunted with dreams of the dead station.
I now love the train ride between Chippendale and Central Station, particularly coming from Redfern as the Mortuary station — as it was called during my grandfather’s working life — is nestled in on the left hand side of the tracks.
Designed by the architect James Barnet it was opened in 1869 and served as a dispatch point for corpses to be taken to Rockwood, Woronora and Newcastle’s Sandgate cemeteries.
While Barnet designed the building to look like a Church, no worship has ever taken place there.
My grandfather told me in its hey day, two trains per day left the station carrying mourners as well coffins in its packed rear.
Mourners travelled in separate carriages and carriages varied in size. The largest held up to 30 coffins while the smaller ones could hold 10.
By the 1950s, with advent of the car and improved road structures the station became defunct. Funeral parlours used specialised motor vehicles to transport coffins and more and more people found their own way to cemeteries in their own vehicles.
The station found use providing other services such as operating a drop off and pick up point for horses and dogs.
In later years it was used as a parcel collection point by the NSW Railways. Probably the most amusing use it was put to was when it was converted to an eatery in the late 80s. This place specialised in pancakes for breakfast and was called The Magic Mortuary.
My grandfather had his last train ride over 60 years ago now but I’m sure wherever he is he would find the Mortuary Station’s last use amusing.
THE END OF THE LINE
From the late 1860s, mourners and coffins were brought into the Rookwood Necropolis and special funeral trains, which ran from the grand sandstone mortuary station near Central.
Tickets were one shilling each way. Corpses travelled free.
On arrival, families would help take the caskets off the train, then meet their grave digger.
The city’s station for the dead contrasted sharply with old Redfern Station, where travellers got little more than a ‘tin shed’ as a terminus, while the grand mortuary station featured its own turret, capped by a copper spire and ornamental vane.
Several more mortuary stations opened across the city, and there was a ‘junior’ version of the Regent St building in Newtown until 1965, when it was demolished.
Actual funeral trains ceased in the 1930s, but trains continued to run on Sundays and Mother’s Day for visitors, with some regular services revived during WWII.
The service was officially terminated on 3 April 1948.
The NSW State Heritage Register has listed the Mortuary Station in Regent St, which was restored by State Rail in the 1980s.
