Despite being an architect’s wet dream, Southern Cross Station isn’t exactly a nice place to wait for a train – diesel exhaust fills the air, and a cacophony of idling engines assault your ears. But there is an escape – there is an enclosed waiting room. But one problem it’s just become less and less comfortable as the years
Finding it
Don’t go looking on the platforms, filled with exhaust smoke.
There are bench seats along the Spencer Street concourse, but they aren’t it.
Despite the view out to the street.
You’ve got to head to the Collins Street end of the station, on the ground floor, opposite the V/Line ticket gates to platforms 1 through 8.
And there is is – a waiting room, filled with cold metal bench seats.
But don’t get too comfortable
Once upon a time, the waiting room at Southern Cross Station wasn’t completely horrible – it had long padded bench seats, which for some reason faced the back wall.
But around 2019 station managed turned the seats to face sideways, removing any blind spots.
And erected a massive ‘There is NO LAYING DOWN in the waiting room’ sign.
Along with a long list of rules and conditions for anyone using the ‘passenger lounge’.
The sign reading:
The Southern Cross Station passenger lounges are for legitimate passengers and friends or family of passengers that may be waiting with them. Use of the lounges and waiting areas is conditional on the following rules and conditions:
• You may be required to produce proof of intent to travel if requested to do so by Security
• No lying down on the floor, or lying across the seats is permitted
• Sitting on the floor is not permitted
• Sleeping in the passenger lounge is not permitted
• Massage chairs are for paying customer use only
• Passengers within the passenger lounge must behave in the civilised manner at all times
• Electrical outlets are for station/maintenance use only and must not be used by passengersThe passenger lounge is monitored by CCTV and patrolled regularly by Security, Protective Service Officers (PSO’s) and the Victoria Police. Failure to comply with the above conditions, may result in you being asked to leave the passenger lounge and/or station and removed if you do not comply with a request to leave.
But all those rules weren’t hostile enough to passengers, so station management took the nuclear option – removing the padded seats, and replacing them with cold steel benches.
Complete with armrests to prevent anyone from laying down on them.
Success?
Footnote: the other waiting room
Southern Cross has a second waiting room at the coach terminal end of the station, hiding in the alleyway beneath the Bourke Street Bridge.
Beside the CountryLink and V/Line ticket offices, luggage hall, and travellers aid office.
Can you do one on the waiting room at Sunshine? As part of Airport Rail a new concourse will be built on the eastern end of the station complete with escalators but there in no mention of a new waiting room. Regional passengers will need to wait here up to 40 minutes away from the cold and rain. I believe there is one in the existing concourse opposite the ticket counter where it has the greatest scrutiny. Ideally we would want a waiting room with retail and slot machines plus enough seats for the expected number of transferring passengers.
I hadn’t thought about the waiting room at Sunshine, despite being there regularly – the current waiting room is opposite the ticket gates to platforms 1 through 3, which is a long way from the V/Line departure platform.
There’s a third waiting room at Southern Cross, up around Bay 67 in the coach terminal. It usually only ever sees occupants during rail replacement and is remarkably even less welcoming than the other two rooms. It does get a street ‘view’ though, despite being slightly below street level!
I thought I had a photo of that waiting room, but I can’t find it – but here it is on Google Street View.
https://www.google.com/maps/@-37.8154982,144.9524138,3a,32.4y,265h,85.11t/data=!3m7!1e1!3m5!1siDjeQPVtnBWirChs7Ixi7g!2e0!5s20091201T000000!7i13312!8i6656
The waiting room at the station has always been a disgrace, no mater what configuration it has had. Just another example of the station not being designed for its principal users.
And as for the use of “laying” rather than “lying” – chooks lay, people lie.
That’s a cleaver trick to tell those two similar sounding words apart.
Because the waiting room is so poor as Southern Cross station, your better off sitting in a waiting V/Line train. If you had to wait for a couple of hours you would just have to bunny hop from one train to another (some trains depending on the service will sit at the platform for almost an hour (if not more) before departing. At least if you sit in one you get comfy seats, some form of privacy and your not huddled together with other passengers like at a hospitals emergency department. Also if things such as lying down became such a problem why not fix the issue instead of giving everyone steel grates to sit on?
I’d forgotten that tip – I’ve done the same back in the days when I had to catch the train to Geelong and they only ran hourly.
The air quality in Southern Cross is criminally negligent. Oh the irony.
… The State that demonises gas heating and power in order to take control of future power generation via Super Funds and State control; but they refuses to upgrade a station that is a diesel fume chamber designed – it seems – to specifically poison the people waiting for trains by virtue of roof contours and zero ventilation …