General News
29 October, 2024
Community push to save station veranda
The Beulah community is fighting to save their historic railway veranda from being demolished.
V/Line has applied to Yarriambiack Shire Council to remove the veranda due to safety concerns.
But Beulah Progress Association chair Alan Lehmann said if the veranda is demolished, the station itself will be damaged - and there would be no replacement.
"If it goes, we won't get another one put in," he said.
"You look around at neighbouring towns like Sheep Hills who don't now have a station, pieces of history just gone from the railway."
The current free-standing veranda was re-engineered in the 1990s when the brick station was built after the second timber station caught on fire in 1928.
"The veranda protects the station from the wind and heat since it comes from the west," Mr Lehmann said.
The station is still used by community groups, including the women's patchwork group, with trains also still travelling through.
The Seymour Heritage Railway charters have stopped in town over the past three years, most recently on October 5.
A petition objecting to removal of the veranda has been signed by 45 people and submitted to council.
The community was granted an extension to lodge their objections by October 31.