History
The original station, situated on the north side of Erskineville Road (then called Swanson Street), opened on 15 October 1884 with the construction of the Illawarra railway line to Hurstville. A new station, constructed on the south side of the overbridge, was opened on 16 June 1912. The lines through Erskineville were quadruplicated on 15 June 1913 with the current arrangement of platforms.
Immediately north of Erskineville, the Illawarra relief lines (from the Eastern Suburbs line) emerge from underground to join the Up and Down Illawarra lines (the eastern-most pair of tracks). This connection opened in 1979. The two westernmost platforms are incomplete and lack tracks. They were originally built at the time of the construction of the Eastern Suburbs line in the 1970s when the alignment between Sydenham and Erskineville was expanded to accommodate 6 tracks. However this was abandoned as a cost-cutting exercise, and the never completed platforms remain unused to date. The Rail Clearways Project previously envisaged that Erskineville would have six tracks, with stopping trains serving only the westernmost platforms, however this project was cancelled in November 2008.
Read more about this topic: Erskineville Railway Station
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