Flinders Street Station—colloquially shortened to simply Flinders Street or sometimes FSS—is a central commuter railway station at the corner of Flinders and Swanston streets in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. It serves the entire metropolitan rail network. Backing onto the city reach of the Yarra River in the heart of the city, the complex covers two whole city blocks and extends from Swanston Street to Queen Street.
Each weekday, over 110,000 commuters and 1,500 trains pass through the station. It is the most used metropolitan railway station in Melbourne, in 2009 there was an average of 85,100 passenger boardings per day. Flinders Street is serviced by Metro's suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland.
It was the first railway station in an Australian city, the terminus for the first use of steam rail in Australia and the world's busiest passenger station in the late 1920s.
The main station building, completed in 1909, is a cultural icon to Melbourne, with its prominent dome, arched entrance, tower and clocks it is one of the city's most recognisable landmarks. As such it is frequently used to symbolise the city and is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register. The Melburnian idiom "I'll meet you under the clocks", refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the time-tabled time of departure for trains on each line; another idiom "I'll meet you on the steps", refers to the wide staircase underneath these clocks. Flinders Street Station is responsible for two of Melbourne's busiest pedestrian crossings, both across Flinders Street, including one of Melbourne's few pedestrian scrambles.
Read more about Flinders Street Station: Clocks, Signal Boxes, Platforms and Services, Bus Services
Famous quotes containing the words street and/or station:
“If I should go out of church whenever I hear a false statement I could never stay there five minutes. But why come out? The street is as false as the church, and when I get to my house, or to my manners, or to my speech, I have not got away from the lie.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (18031882)
“[T]here is no situation so deplorable ... as that of a gentlewoman in real poverty.... Birth, family, and education become misfortunes when we cannot attain some means of supporting ourselves in the station they throw us into. Our friends and former acquaintances look on it as a disgrace to own us.... If we were to attempt getting our living by any trade, people in that station would think we were endeavoring to take their bread out of their mouths.”
—Sarah Fielding (17101768)