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Take a tour of SA railway cranes

Considered by one of SA's leading historians, Dr Peter Bell, to be "a dreary setting"...

In a report tendered during the court case about the demolition of the Nuriootpa railway station building, Dr Peter Bell, the expert witness historian for the US grain train operator and lessee of the line, Genesee & Wyoming, stated "It is not from an early period, is of no architectural significance, was never an important station nor the scene of significant events, is in a dreary setting and is by no means intact. Even if the Nuriootpa station yard had remained miraculously intact to the present, the complex would be of very little heritage value. However, many elements of the former complex are now missing, and what remains consists of isolated fragments in very poor condition."

According to the counter expert, railway historian Rodney Barrington, as a junction station which remained staffed until December 1992, the station was operationally the most important station on the Barossa line. The station building was also architecturally significant as the last remaining example of a standard 1910 SAR station design which previously existed at Apamurra, Cambrai (reerected in 1937 at Nurom), Charleston (reerected at Long Plains), Cummins, Kimba, Melrose, Minnipa, Mount Torrens (reerected in 1937 at Virginia), Robertstown, Sedan, Stockwell (reerected in 1937 at Merriton) and Yeelanna.

Despite being labelled "by no means intact", the station yard included in addition to the station building: a water column, water tower, goods crane, oil store, the last remaining cream shed in SA, platform, passenger bench, station sign, one of the original station gates, turning triangle, signalling equipment and broad gauge tracks. The locally heritage listed station building has now been demolished together with the cream shed and oil store.

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Take a tour of SA railway cranes

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