History
The station is in its situation due to the refusal of the former Engineer-in-Chief of the New South Wales Railways, John Whitton to build the Main Southern Line through the middle of Yass itself. After a visit on 8 December 1871, to investigate possible routes for the extension of the line from Goulburn, Whitton remarked that "to bring the station to North Yass would increase the length of the line by about three quarters of a mile; that the cost would be considerably more than I had recommended, probably £30,000 or £40,000 for works alone; and that in an engineering point of view divergence to North Yass could not be entertained. Despite continuous objections, none of Whitton's working plans or other Government surveys were able to find a suitable route for the railway to pass through Yass. Instead, the present route from Gunning to Bowning was chosen which passed several miles to the north. After a Government Bill was passed "to authorise the construction of tramways along certain streetts and highways in the city and suburbs of Sydney and elsewhere", a tramway was built from Yass Junction to Yass Town to convey passengers. The trams departed from a small dock platform behind Platform 2 (the Melbourne-bound platform). The line opened on 20 April 1892.
Services were suspended on the line on 1 January 1957, started again on 1 December 1957, but again suspended on 18 May 1958. A private bus service continued to carry passengers between the two locations but it also ceased on 18 May 1967. The final services were three steam specials hauled by locomotives 1210 and 3112 on 29 October 1988, before the line was formerly closed on 14 November 1988.
Today, only one bus service per day (from Canberra) connects with the XPT services that travel to and from Melbourne and take passengers to Yass Town.
Read more about this topic: Yass Junction Railway Station
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