Oatley railway station

Oatley railway station is on the Illawarra Line of the Sydney Trains network. It serves the suburb of Oatley. Station entry is from stairs and lifts at Mulga Road and Oatley Parade, and another set of stairs from an underpass on River Road.

Oatley is staffed from 6:00am to 7:00pm on weekdays, and 8:00am to 4:00pm on weekends and public holidays.

History
In 1885 the Illawara line was extended as a single track line to Sutherland (built by C. & E. Miller), with railway stations opened at Como, Penshurst, Mortdale, and Oatley. The small platform at Oatley, with a timber platform building, opened on 26 December 1885. Judd's Hurstville Brick Works had opened in 1884, on a site north of Oatley (now the site of Georges River College). The location of Judd's brick works appears to have been a major reason for the building of Oatley railway station in 1885 in what was then a very sparsely populated area.

The railway station was first called "Oatley's Grant" (up to 1886) and then "Oatley's Platform" (by 1889). In 1890 "Oatley's Platform" finally changed to "Oatley". The line was duplicated in 1890. The Station Master's residence was built in 1891. Development in the area was slow - in 1893 there were only nine houses in the vicinity of the railway station. In 1903 a post office was established at the railway station.

In July 1905 regrading of the railway line led to the station being moved 370 metres (400 yd) to the west of its original location, away from the Oatley town centre at Frederick St and Letitia St to the east. This relocation of the line was due to the steep gradient leading down to the Georges River bridge which the goods trains had difficulty climbing. The 1890 weatherboard platform building was relocated to the new station, onto a long curved brick island platform. The platform building is now only one of the two such weatherboard platform buildings of this type in Sydney (the other being at Penshurst railway station). Part of the former railway reservation is now the Oatley Memorial Gardens, located on the corner of Oatley Parade and River Road.

Access from one side of the line to the other was initially via a series of overbridges at various locations along the line. In some localities these were too far apart, and construction of a series of brick arch subways was begun around 1905 and completed during the 1920s. Construction was in brickwork due to the large number of nearby brickworks. The 1905 brick arched Mulga Road underbridge at Oatley was designed by perway branch staff of New South Wales Government Railways. The platform can be reached from a set of stairs in the subway. The underbridge has a semi-circular brick barrel arch spanning 18 metres (58 ft) over a two-lane roadway, and is thought to be the second largest brick arch underbridge in the NSW rail system. The centre of the bridge is now roofed, between the railway tracks (over the subway) however was unroofed in 1943.

In 1918 the present signal box was incorporated within the then open north end awning area of the platform building. The electrification of the line from St James to Oatley was undertaken in the 1920s, and the first electric train ran on 16 August 1926. This was the first line to be electrified.

In December 1930 disused railway land (the former railway alignment to the east) was officially transferred to Kogarah Council, and this became Oatley Memorial Gardens. When first built in 1905, the double track station had an engine road and goods siding on the eastern side but these were closed in 1940.

The platform building arrangement stayed the same until 1992, when State Rail replanned the remaining part of the platform building, providing new toilet facilities and a larger waiting room at the southern end of the building. This resulted in major change to the platform building both externally and internally (except to the signal box, which remains unaltered), including changes to windows and doors. Also in 1992, a new steel platform canopy was built, connecting the platform building and the entrance to the pedestrian subway.

On 3 March 2001 a commemorative trip, utilising RailCorp's heritage electric fleet, was made by the Governor Professor Marie Bashir and invited guests to mark the 75th anniversary of the inaugural journey from St James to Oatley in 1926. In 2005 some of the 1992 changes to the platform building were reversed. The 1918 signal box remains in a near original state despite being superseded for electric light signals in 1926.

In 2015 the station was upgraded with a 100 vehicle car park, and a new pedestrian footbridge with lifts.

Configuration
Oatley station is located between Mulga Road and Oatley Parade in the suburb of Oatley. Station entry is accessed from stairs and a lift on the entrances at Mulga Road and Oatley Parade, which both connect to a footbridge, where customers can use another lift and stairs to access the platform. An additional station entrance is also located on River Road, where the line passes over.

Platforms and Services
Oatley is served by T4 Eastern Suburbs & Illawara line trains. Not all trains stop; there is usually a stopping train every 30 minutes in the off-peak, with more during the peaks. The station is mostly serviced by trains to and from Cronulla.