Central

And finally I've done it.  I have reached the end of the line.  The light rail crawls painfully up the incline leading to Central railway station and collapses gasping from its exertions as its passengers crawl infant like from their metal womb.

Yes here I am at Central the ultimate destination of the light rail (unless you're travelling in the other direction of course in which case the ultimate destination is Dulwich Hill).  It has to be admitted that the light rail stop is a little bit of an afterthought for NSW's premier public transport hub.  I believe it used to be a bus terminal.  One gets off the light rail and slinks through an ill lit side entrance before entering fully upon the magnificence that is Central Railway Station.

And what magnificence it is.  Built back in the days when public buildings were supposed to be impressive rather than hateful Central has lots of handsome sandstone, a wacking great clock and a domed roof.  In fact the only really aesthetically displeasing thing about the original station is the people milling about inside it.  Like most similar venues around the world Central railway station performs two vital public services.  It is a transport hub and an impromptu homeless shelter.  The disturbing thing is that the homeless are neither the worst dressed nor the most obnoxious people you will find there.

Of course Central has undergone a lot of additional work since the handsome sandstone building was unleashed on the general public in the early years of the twentieth century.  You can mark the age of each additional update largely by how displeasing and visually repugnant it is especially by comparison with the original building and earlier additions.  By the time one gets to the latest platforms we're talking clapboard walls, narrow tunnels and a tiling system that seems to have been inspired by mid twentieth century public toilets.

I'm being a little unfair of course.  Central station is currently being renovated and therefore doesn't look quite its best at the moment.  As I cast back over the weed choked fields of my memory I realise I can't remember a time when Central wasn't being renovated.  Parts of are always blocked off, detoured around or have that helpful yellow and black tape that tells you either work is in progress or a gruesome murder has been committed.  I literally cannot recall a time when the entirety of Central station was open for the general public to frolic in.  Possibly to bring a little unpredictability to our otherwise routine riddled lives the particular parts that are boarded off or surrounded by tape change from time to time.  I rather suspect that there isn't any renovation work going on at all and the whole thing is an elaborate ruse to help justify the ongoing inconvenience.  It's also possible that I have misidentified very cheap and tacky permanent fixtures as being under renovation.

Still for all its flaws Central is still the only place in NSW where you can absolutely guarantee that you will see a train.  It might not be going where you want to go but at least it gives the lie to the persistent rumours that our entire train fleet was sold some years ago to an amusement park in South Korea.

And Central isn't finished yet!  Renovations may be more notional than actual but new work is definitely proceeding apace as workers hack out new tunnels and stations for the upcoming metro line.  I'm not sure why they bother as Central has two underground stations already built that have never been used but I suppose they have their reasons.  In the meantime I will stride past handsome sandstone walls, down a flight of stairs into what looks like a repurposed maintenance tunnel and then along until I get to another flight of stairs that will lead me up to a platform tastefully decorated in the most fetching particle board offcuts you can find in a Bunnings leftovers bin and wait for a train to cart me home.