Balhannah Railway Station

This weekend I took a trip to the abandoned Balhannah Railway Station in the Adelaide Hills, in the town of Balhannah.

As the station is completely fenced off with clear signs to keep out, I took ALL photos here from behind the fence of the station. I made sure to remain behind the fence at all times. Click any photos to enlarge.

The Great Southern Rail Overland train to Melbourne (Twice weekly) and regular freight trains still use the standard gauge railway lines through this station.

Originally Balhannah Railway Station was on the former broad gauge line that was shortened to Belair Railway Station for Adelaide Metro broad gauge line services. The broad gauge line itself from Belair onwards was replaced back in 1995 to a dual standard gauge line to Melbourne.

Update 10/5/2015: Balhannah Station used to also be a junction station, which a branch line diverged from here towards Oakbank, Woodside, Charleston, Mount Torrens, Birdwood and on to Mount Pleasant. This branch line was opened in 1918 and closed in 1953, but still had some rail traffic to Oakbank Race Carnival yearly until the early 1960's. The branch line rails have long been removed and the stations too, but the former alignment can be seen by following a gravel road near the station through a cutting and following the Onkaparinga Valley Road. This can be seen well on Google Maps.

A section of this former branch line between Oakbank and Mount Torrens is now converted to a bike trail called the "Amy Gillet bikeway". It is planned to extend the bikeway along the former rail alignment to Mount Pleasant in the future. Thanks to Pressman (SouthOzRail forum) for most of this extra info.

  

The station itself is in very poor condition, covered in Graffiti and eaten out by termites too. I assume it will be demolished at some stage.

Zoomed in photo of the former goods siding (from behind the fence) with the crane also in situ:

View towards Balhannah Station on the platform (positioned behind the fence) - you can also see the signal box building structure still in situ:

View of the Entrance to the Balhannah Railway Station from behind the fence:

I thought it might be interesting to show Railway fans what Balhannah Railway Station looks like in April 2015, as I suspect it may not be around for much longer.