Lineside Liaisons #20 Mullumbimby

Mullumbimby railway station, a decade after the last train had left town.

The North Coast of New South Wales is home to some of Australia's best beaches. Back before the Pacific Highway upgrade turned a horrible stretch of highway into a short hop across the border from Queensland, most visitors made their way north of Sydney by train aboard the Gold Coast Motorail Express. Today, the Murwillumbah Line including the station at Mullumbimby lies dormant, a stretch of rusting railway nestled well back from the coastline at the foot of the Burringbar Range. Memories of the train pulling up at a crowded platform in the late evening while headed south on the overnight XPT to Sydney still flood back every time I see the above picture. I'm glad I had the opportunity to retrace my steps more than a decade after the last train had left town, and capture this photo to which I set the words of the poem The Train to Mullumbimby. And just as thankful to have captured many of the other remaining relics from our railway past that lie forgotten on the North Coast for my book Last Train to Grafton.

I don't know how many more places such as this that I will be able to afford to travel to and record the ghosts of our railway past before they too disappear, which makes Last Train to Grafton such a special collection of haunting railway photography set to Australian bush poetry.

See also; Mullumbimby: Iggy Azalea's Hometown Station