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'Rookwood Cemetery Departs From Mortuary Platform', indicator board at Powerhouse Museum 17 April 2015

By
Skip Nyegard
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Flickr
[https://www.flickr.com/photos/sjkln/17214367116]
(CC BY-NC-SA 2.0) (Detail from the 1905 Central Station indicator board held at the Powerhouse Museum, Registration No: B2450))

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Nyegard, Skip

Flickr

Funeral trains

By the 1840s, Sydney's Devonshire Street cemetery was nearing capacity so planning commenced for a new cemetery at Haslems Creek. From 1867 through to 1948, a branch from the Parramatta to Sydney line brought mourners and coffins into the Rookwood Necropolis, with grand sandstone mortuary stations at both ends.

Death and Dying

Railway stations

Railways

Trains

Central Railway Station

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Central Railway Station, opened in 1906, is Sydney's main rail terminus. Built on the site of the Devonshire Street Cemetery, it replaced a nearby terminus on Devonshire Street.

Mortuary railway station

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Gothic style railway station on Regent Street in Chippendale that was built on a spur line as a terminus for funeral trains to Rookwood cemetery. Designed by James Barnet and built in two colours of Pyrmont sandstone, the receiving station at the other end of the line was in a similar style. The first time the station was used was for the funeral of Dr William Bland on 23 July 1868. In 1938 funeral trains stopped running from Mortuary station and the name was changed to Regent Street Station. The station, with some stationary rail cars, was restored and used as a restaurant in the 1980s. It is occasionally opened for heritage events.

Powerhouse Museum

Wide-ranging museum of human ingenuity housed in a repurposed power station in Ultimo, which grew out of the Technological Museum, whose collection was based on the International Exhibition of 1879, and the Museum of Applied Arts and Sciences.

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Rookwood Cemetery

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Large cemetery established in 1868 on the railway line between Sydney and Parramatta at Haslem's Creek. It became known as the Rookwood Necropolis after the suburb in which it was located. The suburb's name was eventually changed to Lidcombe, but the cemetery retained the name of Rookwood. 

Cemetery Station No. 1 Rookwood

A railway station terminus at Rookwood Cemetery, also known as the Necropolis Receiving Station, which served the cemetery's railway line. It was part of a larger line completed in 1869 that ran to the Woronora General Cemetery in Sutherland and to Sandgate Cemetery in Newcastle. James Barnet adopted elements of 13th-century Venetian Gothic style and the station included wide platforms, a ticket office, two vestibules, retiring rooms and a carriage port. After the station closed, it was dismantled and moved to Canberra where it is now All Saints Church.

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