Issy Golding
Feature
Return
Issy Golding Our daily commute to the CBD allows us to glimpse into the mythologies and ghost stories of Sydney’s past. Train tracks are the visual line that seems to go on forever. The endless path never felt more permanent than the daily commute into the CBD. St James Station was built in 1926. It was one of the first train tracks built in the city. However, it was never actually completed and only two of the four planned platforms were ever operational. The others are hidden behind aged doors, ignored by commuters for almost 100 years.
The creation of these tunnels, 1922. St Mary’s Cathedral in the distance.
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During World War Two, the tunnels were designated air raid shelters. Their lifelessness was designed to protect the city from oncoming attacks, although it was never necessary in the end. Today, eerie vines fall from the roofs. Endless tracks extend into an endless darkness. It’s hard to imagine how many people have walked past these spaces and never registered the importance they once had. Perhaps it’s just my innate interest in lives long gone, but these spaces and their lost potential are of an almost existential interest. How can a modern city understand its own identity with these spaces left to remain unknown forever?
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The St James Tunnels were built with the intention of serving Sydneysiders, but were abandoned during the Great Depression. Only the empty tunnels remain, stuck in time, as if someone planned on returning to them after a smoke break. The station only ended up serving the Northern lines and the City Circle, rather than extending west as it had intended to. Over the last 100 years, there have been endless plans to return some life into these tunnels, but none ever took off, so the tunnels stay unused.
