My railway station, for now

With the opening of Anzac Station and the Metro Tunnel this year, South Yarra Station will be less used by me. 

To travel on the Pakenham or Cranbourne lines, I will use Anzac Station as those trains will cease to travel via South Yarra Station, diving underground just before they reach the station.

Anzac Station is a five minute walk for me, or one stop on a tram. I am not sure whether I will continue to use what will become less crowded trams to travel to the city, or use the train. Assuming the train has a very frequent clock face service, I will almost certainly use it to travel to the northern area of the city, using Museum Station, but only real life travel can tell me whether it will be better to reach the closer Town Hall Station. The slow part of the tram trip is once it reaches the city, with traffic lights very hostile to trams. 

Time will  tell. If travelling by train to areas west of the city, while it may take a little longer, I often catch  a tram to South Yarra, and then a train that runs through the city and out to the west. It seems when the Metro Tunnel opens, these through trains will revert to using the underground City Loop, although possible another line might offer a through service from South Yarra Station.

I quite like South Yarra Station, though it has changed a lot over a couple of decades, with the front rebuilt and opened up wider. Pre Covid, it was neck to neck with Caulfield Station as the busiest outside of the city stations. This will certainly change when the Metro Tunnel opens, with quite a substantial drop in patronage at South Yarra and an increase at Caulfield. 

Here are a few photos of South Yarra Station. There is lots of seating to the left of this photo, and the level boarding tram stops could not be any closer. If you look at my header photo, the station is just before the tall buildings. 

I think the modern timberwork works quite well. Until I looked at these photos, I had not noticed how nice the windows are. Gates are now plentiful and to the right of this photo is the ticket office. 

This screen alternates between displaying passing tram times and nearby Chapel Street trams.

These screens inform passengers with train information. 

This one generally displays 'good service' for all train lines, until it doesn't. 

Improvements to the station could be lifts for each pair and individual platforms as the rams are quite steep. Ray used to always moan about the steepness of the ramp. So much for the power of Baby Boomers. There has a been a lot of intensive apartment development to the north of the station, so it also now needs northern platform entrances.