South Yarra railway station

South Yarra railway station is located in the south-eastern Melbourne suburb of South Yarra, in Victoria, Australia, on the Pakenham, Cranbourne, Frankston and Sandringham lines. V/Line's Bairnsdale rail services (the Gippsland line) pass non-stop through the station.

The station is a premium station, and, according to Public Transport Victoria data, was the 11th-busiest station on the Melbourne metropolitan network, with 49,000 entries each week in 2011/12.

South Yarra station is set for a $12 million makeover in early 2020. The entrance to the station on Toorak Road is to be widened and the layout changed to make the station larger.

History
The station was opened on 22 December 1860, by the Melbourne and Suburban Railway Company, as "Gardiner's Creek Road". Initially, it served the Brighton line, on what was called the "Prahran Branch". The station was renamed South Yarra on 1 January 1867. The private railway company, by then the Melbourne and Hobson's Bay United Railway Company, was taken over by the Government of Victoria in 1878, its network becoming part of Victorian Railways.

John Cooper (1924) notes that when the South Yarra to Oakleigh line was first constructed, a set of points connected the line to the existing Brighton line. However, it was found that a high embankment obscured the vision of the drivers of approaching trains on both lines. To solve that problem, it was decided that the Oakleigh line should have its own tracks into Melbourne, and soon after, a second bridge, spanning the Yarra River, was built to facilitate that (p. 307). The opening of the South Yarra to Oakleigh line in 1879 made the proposed Outer Circle railway line largely redundant, but it was constructed anyway, a decade later.

Even after the laying of six tracks from Richmond to South Yarra and abolition of the signal box there, the station retained three emergency crossovers at the north end of platforms 1/2, 3/4 and 5/6. The latter set was removed in 1983, followed by the middle pair by 23 June 1984 and the final set in August 1986.

The station was upgraded to premium station status in 1996.

The Pakenham and Cranbourne railway lines will cease to stop at South Yarra station when the Metro Tunnel opens, which is scheduled to take place in 2025.

Platforms and services
South Yarra station has six platforms. It is serviced by Pakenham, Cranbourne, Frankston, and Sandringham Metro Trains services.

Platform 1:
 * Sandringham line: all stations services to Flinders Street

Platform 2:
 * Sandringham line: all stations services to Sandringham

Platform 3:
 * Frankston line: all stations services to Flinders Street

Platform 4:
 * Frankston line: all stations and limited express services to Frankston

Platform 5:
 * Pakenham line: all stations services to Flinders Street
 * Cranbourne line: all stations services to Flinders Street

Platform 6:
 * Pakenham line: all stations and limited stops services to Pakenham
 * Cranbourne line: all stations and limited stops services to Cranbourne

Transport links
Yarra Trams operates one route that passes South Yarra station:
 * 58: West Coburg - Toorak