Gardiner Railway Signal Box

What is Significant?

The signal box at Gardiner Railway Station is a gable roofed timber framed building erected c1917 to a standard Victorian Railways design. It was built to control the Burke Road level crossing at time when the electric tram line was extended along Burke Road by the Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust.

The switch house at Gardiner Railway Station is a modest red brick building with a gabled terracotta tiled roof. It was built c1922 when this section of the railway line was electrified. The switch house is understood to contain electrical equipment needed for the operation of the tramway square at the Burke Road level crossing.

Elements that contribute to the significance of the place include (but are not limited to):

- The external form, materials and detailing of the signal box and switch house as originally built.

- The high level of intactness of the buildings to their original design.

- The freestanding form of the buildings and their modest scale.

- The siting of the buildings adjacent to the Gardiner Railway station and the Burke Road level crossing, and their close proximity to one another.

- Unimpeded views to the buildings from Burke Road.

- The limited presence of modern signage on the buildings and in their immediate curtilage.

Modern fabric, including signage and fencing in the curtilage of the buildings, does not contribute to the significance of the place.

How is it significant?

The signal box and switch house at Gardiner Railway Station are of local historical, architectural and technological significance to the City of Stonnington.

Why is it significant?

The signal box is historically significant as evidence of the impact of the extension of the electric tram network through the municipality in the 1910s (TEH 4.5.2 Prahran-Malvern Tramways Trust, Criterion A). The switch house is historically significant for its association with the electrification of the suburban rail network (TEH 4.4.3 Twentieth century improvements, Criterion A).

The signal box is architecturally significant as a substantially intact example of an early twentieth century Victorian railways building (Criterion D). Along with the adjacent switch house, the signal box provides rare evidence of the early character of the Glen Waverley line prior to its duplication in the 1950s and the associated modernisation of all station buildings. The signal box and switch house, and the matching signal box and switch house at Gardiner, are the only pre-World War II railway buildings known to survive on this line (with the possible exception of an altered c1928 signal box at Darling Railway Station) (Criterion B).

The Gardiner Railway Station signal boxis technologically significant for its ability to demonstrate early twentieth century safe working practices at level crossings. The signal box and switch house are of added technological significance as infrastructure controlling one of only four tramway squares remaining in metropolitan Melbourne (Criterion B, F).

Group

Transport - Rail

Category

Signal Box