Media
Adamstown Railway Station. Photographed by Ralph Snowball.
Photo Ref: 21143
Creator: Snowball, Mr Ralph
Station staff and fettlers pose for the camera of Ralph Snowball in this early 20th century view (about 1904-1905 period) of Adamstown Station looking south. The house on the hill in the background is “Mt Pleasant”, the home of James Ruttley and family. St. Pius X School now occupies much of this height reduced site. Ruttley owned small collieries in the area including Shortland and Crofton No1.The three semaphore signals testify to Adamstown’s status as both a mainline and junction station. The signal on the right controls mainline traffic going south, the middle one caters for trains going onto what was originally to be the Redhead Coal Mining Company’s line (A reorganised company, the New Redhead Coal Mining Company actually built the line with the South Burwood Coal Company building a branch off this line to serve its colliery.), later the Belmont line, the signal on the left is for traffic going onto the New Lambton Branch now a part of Bailey Street. Awnings attached to the station buildings were partly due to strong representations made by the Mayor of Adamstown to the Railway Commissioners during 1903-1904. He was concerned for the comfort and safety of holiday makers and picnickers, up to 2,000 of who crowded onto the station’s platforms. During the life of passenger services to Belmont, Adamstown’s Station’s destination boards carried the reminder, “Change here for the Belmont Line”. Main station buildings on the down platform (towards Newcastle) stood until February 1984 when they were demolished as part of the SRA’s “facelift” to coincide with the opening of electric train services to Newcastle. [Ralph Snowball] photo [reproduced from] Ed Tonks/Ken Shilling Collection. From “Adamstown via Fernleigh”. Ralph Snowball (1849-1925), was a Newcastle based photographer. His studio was in Lambton, but he travelled extensively throughout the Newcastle, Lake Macquarie and Hunter Valley region. Snowball used glass negative photography to capture portraits, events, architecture and trains. His work gives insight into Newcastle life in the late 1800s and early 1900s.He died in 1925 and was buried in Sandgate Cemetery.
This work by Lake Macquarie City Library is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 3.0 Unported License