Flinders Street Station
in pixels

About Flinders Street Station

Melbourne’s first railway station on this site opened in 1854 as a cluster of timber sheds, and it is counted as the first city railway station in Australia. As the network grew, the government held a design competition, and in 1900 the winning entry by two railway employees, James Fawcett and H. P. C. Ashworth, was announced. The new building was essentially finished in 1909 and officially opened in 1910.

Stone was judged too expensive, so the station was built in red brick with cement-render details, crowned by a copper-clad dome over the main entrance on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets. A clock tower stands at the Elizabeth Street end. In the 1920s it was reputedly the busiest passenger station in the world, and it is still the busiest station in Victoria.

“Meet me under the clocks” is one of the best-known phrases in Melbourne. It refers to the row of indicator clocks above the main entrance, which show the next departure on each line. In 1983 the clocks were taken down to be replaced by digital displays, but public outrage reversed the decision within a day, and they are still there.

The station was added to the Victorian Heritage Register in 1982. A major restoration followed a 2015 funding announcement, and by 2017 the building had been repainted in its original 1910 colours, replacing the familiar mustard yellow with more muted stone and red shades based on analysis of the original paint.

The diorama

The station is built at about one unit for one and a half metres, though its long front is squeezed into a fraction of its real length. The yellow and red-brick facade has rows of arched windows, cream render bands, small copper-capped pavilions and a verandah over the footpath. At the corner, the main pavilion carries the copper dome on its drum, and the great arched entrance has a row of clocks over the doors with people waiting on the steps. At the far end, the clock tower’s hands race round as a timelapse.

Green-and-cream W-class trams and modern white trams run along Flinders Street and Swanston Street under their overhead wires. Across the corner stands St Paul’s Cathedral with its three spires, and Federation Square’s faceted buildings sit across Swanston Street. Behind the station, a suburban train pulls into the platforms, and two rowing eights glide along the Yarra beside Princes Bridge. At night the facade is floodlit in warm and coloured light, and the clocks, windows and trams glow.

Things to spot

• The row of clocks over the main entrance
• People waiting on the steps under the clocks
• A green W-class tram with its trolley pole
• Two rowing eights on the Yarra
• A suburban train pulling into the platforms
• The clock tower’s hands racing round

What we simplified

• The facade, which really runs along more than two city blocks, is much shorter, and the station’s many platforms are reduced to two tracks.
• The colours follow the mustard yellow many people remember rather than the more muted stone and red of the 2017 restoration.
• St Paul’s Cathedral, Federation Square and the streets around them are simplified and moved in close.

Isometric maps of Melbourne

Melbourne also has an isometric pixel-art map made by the community: the whole city drawn tile by tile in the same SimCity-like style. See the map of Melbourne →