- Goodwood Connection: early 1920's. Some work was undertaken but never completed. It would have been a double track line from the Suburban lines to the Glenelg line. Traces of this remained until relatively recently.
Are you referring here to a proposal to connect the Glenelg line directly to the SAR suburban system at Goodwood? Interesting. So there were traces of the work done; would that have involved curves from the main-line around to connect with the Glenelg line? It's interesting to contemplate what might have happened.
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The original southern line had step down platforms to facilitate street loading. I remember the Goodwood station adjacent to Goodwood Road as a Scout hall. As Kipioneer has said, there were clear traces that connection to the Nairne line was contemplated, including a bridge over the SAR station subway. A large iron multi court basketball stadium stood over the right-of-way adjacent to the tram overpass in the post 1939-45 war period..
As it left from Adelaide Railway Station, the northern line had conventional high level platforms. The Thebarton platform, just after the junction at Mile End, was very close to that station and clearly visible until the goods yards and engine depot were demolished to make way for the ANR-GSR interstate terminal.
As a small boy I, on one unforgettable day, played with the levers in the signal box at the abandoned Marion Road station while my aunt played tennis nearby. The platform still exists. Again as a boy I can remember the large disused Glenelg railway depot where later there were bowling greens which were closed to allow for the present deviation of Brighton Road into Tapleys Hill Road.
To put a time frame on my memories, I was six months old when the Glenelg services changed from broad gauge steam to an electric inter-urban tramway. I grew up with the Melbourne trains passing our back fence at Nairne, crossing the line to school with the Principal, my father, going home for a cooked meal at lunch-time as it was so close, and visiting Mr. Parry in the then stand-alone elevated signal box on the Adelaide side of the original station building to enjoy the winter warmth of the coal stove in the corner while I watched him pull the levers. The coal always seemed 'accidentally' to fall from the engine tenders close the box.
Now you know why, though no expert, I have grown up loving trains and trams. Tomorrow I am going on what will probably be my last 'Indian Pacific' trip to Broken Hill. I remember riding on the 'Tin Hare' from Parkes, the original Peterborough station, changing trains at Terowie and travelling in a comfortable sleeper in the last ever narrow-gauge Broken Hill express, hauled by a T class from Terowie to Cockburn and returning behind diesels, and numerous other SAR and VR (during my 28 years of residence in Melbourne) experiences.
Please, if you wish to comment on anything in the last two paragraphs of irrelevancies to the subject here, start a new thread. Don't hi-jack this one.
