NZ Visual Diary - entry 221
Melbourne
Southern Cross Train Station - Melbourne
Living as an urban hipster in Auckland Central has rekindled many childhood loves, not the least of them my love of trains.
During school holidays as a grade school boy, I often rode the train to Grand Central Station in New York City with my father to spend the day at his office. I hung out in the art department. The 40 minute train ride always mesmerised me.
I am equally transfixed by train stations, and Melbourne has two stations that from distinctly different visual points of view are rhapsodic in appearance.
Viewers of this blog who know Melbourne far better than I - my recent trip to Melbourne was my first visit to the marvellous city - will assert that, from an architectural point of view, the Flinders Street railway station is a more impressive destination than the Southern Cross railway station. No issue there: the Flinders Street station is a cultural icon.
The primary purpose of my trip being attendance at the Ballarat International Foto Biennale, and the Southern Cross railway station offering the direct route on the V/Line to Ballarat, I rode the tram from my hotel to Southern Cross.
I returned one evening to photograph the station at night, the two images of this entry being the joys of that haunt.
The architectural beauty of the Flinders Street station warrants its own presentation, and is one of the many reasons that I shall return to Melbourne.