Stations east of Sale

There is, or was, a great number of tiny stations between Sale and Orbost. This story is about the Sale-Bairnsdale section of the line, 69km of flat and easy going, opened in 1888. The railway had reached Sale in 1877 and stopped there for a rest. The Sale railway station is worth a story in itself, but not just now.
The line was extended to Stratford Junction in May 1888 and reached Stratford quickly. I had not realised that the first part of the rail loop from Traralgon out through Glengarry, Toongabbie, Cowwarr and Dawson to Heyfield was opened in 1883, and continued on through Tinamba and Maffra to Stratford by November 1887. When the Sale line reached Stratford Junction in 1888 there was already a railway to Stratford and that, I imagine must have meant completion of the long railway bridge across the Avon.

Between Sale and Bairnsdale the stations were Montgomery, Stratford Junction, Stratford, Munto, Fernbank Lindenow and Hillside. Only Sale, Stratford and Bairnsdale have trains ever stopping there now. From Bairnsdale it is a V-line bus service heading for Orbost, Bateman's Bay and Canberra.
The Montgomery station opened when the line was opened, serving a farming area, notably including the Napper Estate in the 1930s. The Estate was opened up for closer settlement and that made a school necessary, but only from 1931 to 1933. The station was one of those closed in 1935. There was a family named Montgomery in the district, from whom the name might well have come.
On 16 February 2015 a team working on the track at Montgomery left an item of equipment ( a dog-spike puller, on the line when clearing the line for a passenger train to go through. The driver saw it and locked up the brakes but could not stop in time and a minor collision occurred between the train and the puller. A dog-spike puller is a small machine and an N-Class locomotive is a very large machine. No-one was injured and the train stayed on the rails, but Montgomery station made the newspapers, eighty years after it was closed.
Stratford Junction was apparently a station in the early days of the line but I cannot find any record that establishes it as such, or anything much at all about it. The line goes over the highway here on a steel bridge, and for a long time the old-fashioned signal box stood there unused, just to the west of the road.
Stratford, opened on 7 November 1887 was the terminus of the line from Traralgon through Maffra. When the line came up from Sale the following year the line between Stratford and Stratford Junction was already in place. In 1995 V-line stopped passenger services east from Sale. Road coaches, sometimes called busses, took over the service on a new routs that included Lakes Entrance. Timber mill traffic again rode the rails from Bairnsdale in 1999 and in 2004 passenger services from Sale to Bairnsdale, stopping at Stratford (only) were reintroduced.
Munro is somewhat misrepresented by Wikipedia, which says it was opened in 1862, That would have left it waiting twenty six years for its first train. There are Munro stations in several other countries, too, even Argentina. Ours opened in 1888 and was closed in 1975. By then it was little more than a siding where agricultural produce could be loaded, including local sugar beet. Local families organised a group to fight to keep the siding operational in 1977 when it was being considered for closure. The locals won, for once.
Fernbank was closed in 1981 after 93 years, when a large number of 'uneconomic' stations, 35 of them, across the state were shut down. It was never a busy station and its importance to the local community had waned. The name is thought to have come from the ferns along the Perry River (a.k.a. Providence Ponds) but who really knows? The community seems to have had some size, though, because the Post office opened in 1868 and survived until 1977.
Lindenow, next station, at the 160-mile peg, was not really at Lindenow. The railway passed a few kilometres to the south. A small community grew up around the station and became known as Lindenow South. The station sent out large amounts of farm produce but it also served a number of local sawmills sending out railway sleepers, framing timber fence rails, etc. It does not look, nowadays, as if it was home to any sawmills but many of the stations on this line served one or more sawmills.
There was also a flax mill, an industry that was tried in a few Gippsland locations but did not last.
The Lindenow station opened with the line in 1888 but was closed in 1982. Trains pass through, but they never stop.
Hillside opened on October 1, 1888 and saw its last passenger service in May 1972. The goods siding was kept in service, and in recent times was used to ship out large cargoes of logs. The siding and the goods yard were upgraded in 1910-1911 because of the volumes of goods going in and out. The reopening of passenger services to Bairnsdale saw people passing through but, again, they were not usually locals. They passed on through to Bairnsdale.
Bairnsdale was the terminus of the Gippsland line from 1888 to 1916 and again when the line to Orbost was progressively closed. It is now the end of the line again, and if you are travelling east with V-line you'll board a bus here to go to Orbost, or even Bateman's Bay or Canberra.
In 1993 Sale became the terminus when passenger services to Bairnsdale were stopped. In 2004 a change of policy brought passenger trains back to Bairnsdale. I'll tell the Bairnsdale station's story soon enough. Bairnsdale is rich in history. The railway line and the wharf on the Mitchell, with its rail spur, have been a major part of that history.
The next station, still heading east, was Nicholson, where the line crossed the river of that name. It is a big river here and the bridge is a handsome construction with a steel main span over the water and then a long line of tall trestles leading to higher land back from the east bank. Nicholson station was important for holiday makers and tourists in the earlier years but the motor car killed that trade. By 1987 Nicholson was seen as uneconomic and was closed on 24 August.
Th Victorian State Library has a picture of two A2-class locomotives on the bridge as a test. At 121 tons each they provided a solid test.
In next week's story we'll follow the railway right up to Orbost.