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Railway renos on track

Headshot of Kellie Balaam
Kellie BalaamNarrogin Observer
Narrogin Shire operations manager John Warburton and president Leigh Ballard.
Camera IconNarrogin Shire operations manager John Warburton and president Leigh Ballard. Credit: Kellie Balaam/Kellie Balaam

Narrogin’s historic railway station is set to be restored to its former glory with renovation works being undertaken in the coming months.

Built in 1906, the heritage-listed station was the former gateway to Narrogin, playing a major role in the town’s history and also the development of the State’s rural railway infrastructure.

Shire of Narrogin president Leigh Ballard said work had started on making the station safe and accessible to contractors.

“We looked at it last year and put some funds in the budget to do some preliminary work on how we could reactivate the area and what would be required to do so — and we needed to make it safe to start with,” he said.

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Local contractors Kulker Carpentry and Construction have made progress with replacing the old platform sleepers with jarrah.

Refurbishment of the platform surface and reopening the steps to the pedestrian bridge are set for the next six to 12 months.

Mr Ballard said the building had many possible uses.

“Some potential options brought up in council discussions include a gallery, small shops for tourism, maybe the tourist bureau, the TransWA bus stop could move down there, the opportunities are unlimited,” he said.

The brick and iron station was built in 1907 to replace the original timber building.

Station staff numbers dropped off with the dramatic decline in the importance of railways.

Scheduled passenger trains stopped running in 1978.

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