Chatswood station opened on 1 January 1890 when the North Shore line opened from Hornsby to St Leonards.[3] It and the suburb was named after Richard Garnett’s second wife’s pet who was called Chatty. An island platform was built on 23 May 1900 and a third dock platform brought into use on 12 July 1919. There was a small goods yard, similar to the one at St Leonards, on the western side of the station, beyond the northern end of the platforms. The dock platform on the eastern side of the station was used for electric parcel-van traffic and also for terminating some services from the city, until these were rescheduled to terminate further along the North Shore line from January 1992.[4] It was removed in October 1994.[5] Until 1958 there was a tram terminus in Victoria Avenue beside the station. The station entrance was later integrated with a shopping centre called The Interchange in the mid-1980s.
Construction on the new station in April 2007
With the construction of the Chatswood to Epping line, it was decided to redevelop the station to accommodate Chatswood's new role as a junction station. The original station, as well as the attached bus interchange and shopping centre were demolished in 2005 and a temporary station was opened where the former platform 3 was located. A new western island platform opened in place of the original island platform on 16 October 2006. The eastern island platform opened in 2008.[6][7] The signal cabin that was located at the northern end of the station building, was saved and has been preserved as part of the bus interchange.[8]
The new station precinct is known as the Chatswood Transport Interchange (CTI) and consists of the railway station, a bus interchange and pedestrian pathways connecting the precinct to the surrounding streets. The CTI was constructed as a Public Private Partnership and was to include a new shopping plaza called Metro Chatswood and three towers. The private developers, CRI Chatswood, went into receivership whilst construction was underway.[9] As a result, the shopping centre remained closed until 2014 and major construction of the towers was delayed for several years.
The station consists of two island platforms – a city-bound platform and an outbound platform. The two centre platforms now serve as the terminus of the Sydney Metro Northwest line. The outer platforms serve the Northern and North Shore lines. A turnback / stabling road is located to the south of the station and is used to terminate some trains from the Sydney Metro.
Access to Chatswood station is provided by a series of pedestrian walkways at three different intersections: Victoria Avenue and Railway Street, Chatswood Mall and Orchard Road, and Post Office Lane and Victor Street.[11] Additional pedestrian entrances are available from Chatswood Central Plaza, adjacent to the north side of the station concourse.[11]
Because the station and tracks are level with the ground, the concourse is actually below street level despite being open-air in nature. The installation of new "jump-proof" opal cardticket barriers[12] in 2018 reduces fare evasion and ensures faster entry into the concourse which features stairs, lifts, and escalators to access the platforms. The station fulfills Sydney Trains' Easy Access criteria.
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