Albury Railway Station

Albury railway station is on the main Sydney-Melbourne railway line. Originally New South Wales and Victoria had different railway gauges, which meant that all travellers in either direction had to change trains at Albury. To accommodate this, a very long railway platform was needed; the 450 metre long covered platform is possibly the longest in Australia. The station is still served by two different rail gauges; the thrice daily broad gauge V/Line services from Melbourne as well as the standard gauge Countrylink XPT services to Sydney which run twice daily.

In 1873 the broad gauge (5 ft 3ins) railway line from Melbourne reached the township of Belvoir/Wodonga. In 1881 the New South Walesstandard gauge (4 ft 8½ins) railway line reached Albury, with a railway bridge joining the two colonies in 1883. Albury became the stop over, where passengers on the Melbourne-Sydney journey changed trains until 1962, when a standard gauge was opened between the two capitals. After World War II in an attempt to overcome the difference in gauges and speed up traffic, a bogie exchangedevice lifted freight wagons and carriages allowing workers to refit rolling stock with different gauged wheel-sets.

The break of railway gauge at Albury was a major impediment to Australia's war effort and infrastructure during World Wars I and II; every soldier, every item of equipment and supplies were all off-loaded from the broad gauge and reloaded onto a standard gauge railway wagon on the opposite side of the platform. In his book Tramps Abroad, writer Mark Twain spoke of the break of gauge at Albury and changing trains... "Now comes a singular thing, the oddest thing, the strangest thing, the unaccountable marvel that Australia can show, namely the break of gauge at Albury. Think of the paralysis of intellect that gave that idea birth."(cited by Fisher below)

Military armouries and warehouses were established in the vicinity of Albury. Similar stores were also established at Tocumwal andOaklands.

In 2007, (with a government's view that there was a decline of traffic on the broad gauge line) there are plans to convert this line tostandard gauge at least from Seymour and obtain double track for the standard gauge. This plan received approval in May 2008.