History
The station was built using cut and cover construction. In December 1973 to permit excavation of the station, La Trobe Street and its tram tracks were temporarily relocated to the south onto the site of what is now the Melbourne Central Shopping Centre, and moved back on completion of the work in 1978. The pit was 168 metres long and 22.5 metres wide, 29 metres deep at the Swanston Street end and 22 metres at Elizabeth Street. Seven layers of struts were used to support the excavation, with 2600 tonnes of steel temporary supports required.
The station opened as Museum on 24 January 1981 after the adjacent Melbourne Museum in the State Library of Victoria complex on Swanston Street. The first station on the loop to open, initially services only operated for the Burnley and Caufield Groups on platforms 2 and 4, with trains starting to use platform 1 on 31 October 1982, and platform 3 on 1 May 1984. The Elizabeth Street entrance to the station was opened on 5 April 1982.
The adjacent Melbourne Central Shopping Centre shopping centre opened in 1991, being built around the existing escalators to street level, and only minor integration between the station concourse and shopping centre. The Museum moved in 1995 to its current premises beside the Royal Exhibition Building in the Carlton Gardens, with the station being renamed for the shopping centre on 16 February 1997.
The station concourse was redeveloped in 2002-03 as part of the renovation of the wider centre, with the direct escalators from the concourse to Swanston Street was closed in November 2003, and replaced by a path through the shopping centre.
Read more about this topic: Melbourne Central Railway Station
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