There was only one problem: the bustling suburb never eventuated

The centenary of one of the Canberra region's most forgotten railway stations passed almost silently this week.

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There was no fanfare. No 100th birthday cake. No commemorative plaque. Just an abandoned railway corridor, choked with weeds, where nature is steadily reclaiming what remains.

Tim waits in vain for a train at the site of the former Letchworth Station. He's only 70 years late. Picture supplied

Indeed, unless you know exactly where to look along the disused Queanbeyan-to-Bombala railway line, you could easily walk past the former Letchworth station site without realising a railway station ever existed there.

That's because there is virtually nothing left.

Even in its heyday, this former whistle-stop, tucked away near the Lanyon Drive overpass between Hume and Jerrabomberra, was hardly a bustling transport hub.

Opened on October 22, 1926, Letchworth was the brainchild of flamboyant Sydney property developer Henry Ferdinand Halloran.

Halloran had acquired extensive grazing land just across the border from the fledgling national capital and saw an opportunity. Canberra was growing, and he reasoned that people would be keen to live close to the new city, particularly if they could own freehold land rather than lease it from the Commonwealth.

Just how close is strikingly apparent today.

The completed station building on October 11, 1926, less than two weeks prior to its official opening. Picture courtesy of the Lady Denman Halloran Archive and Queanbeyan & District Historical Museum Society

Stand beside the old railway corridor and, through a natural frame of trees, Black Mountain Tower looms on the horizon. It is a wonderfully incongruous sight - Canberra's unmistakable modern landmark rising above a long derelict railway line.

Halloran's planned residential estate was named after Letchworth Garden City in England, a pioneering planned community that had become an international model for leafy, spacious development.

There was, however, one slight problem with its intended antipodean twin.

Halloran's proposed garden city was essentially a sheep paddock in the boondocks.

Plan for the Letchworth Estate (initially referred to as Howard). Picture supplied

He knew transport would be crucial if he was to attract prospective buyers, so he successfully lobbied for a railway stop to serve his proposed estate.

The station itself was decidedly modest: a short passenger platform and a timber building.

Halloran even planted trees around the estate and along some of the surrounding tracks, presumably to make his proposed community look rather more inviting.

But his vision was about to encounter something that would bring his grand plan to a grinding halt: The Great Depression.

Looking south from the former Letchworth Station. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

Australians suddenly had considerably less money and, as you'd expect, less enthusiasm for buying speculative blocks in an estate that was yet to become a suburb.

And if the name Halloran rings a bell, it's because Letchworth wasn't his only phantom development in this corner of the world.

Just a few kilometres away, he was planning the even more extravagant Environa, a proposed township for thousands of residents, complete with grand boulevards, parklands, civic monuments and a bandstand.

Letchworth suffered much the same fate.

A boulder on the disused Queanbeyan to Bombala track just south of the former Letchworth Station. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

With just a scattering of farmhouses nearby, there was no army of commuters waiting each morning for a train to Canberra (via Queanbeyan). The station was never the gateway to a thriving new suburb that Halloran had envisaged.

Nonetheless, for three decades, the white elephant lingered beside the line, serving a community that never arrived.

Then, on May 1, 1956, NSW Railways officially closed it.

Earlier this week, when I walked out to the former station site, I was surprised at just how little remained.

There was no platform to stand on, no building to shelter in and no station sign to identify the place. Weeds crowded the old track, and the surrounding grassland stretched away without offering any hint of the suburban streets and houses Halloran had once envisaged.

Instead, I found a solitary brick pillar. A closer look at historic photographs suggests it was one of two brick pillars that once supported the Letchworth station sign.

The brick pillar, still in situ. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

Weathered and half-lost among the grass, it is an unassuming relic. Yet it provides a wonderfully tangible link to the tiny station that disappeared from railway timetables 70 years ago.

There is no interpretive sign announcing the station's former existence, no platform edge to trace and no sign of the small station building.

I wonder what happened to it?

Letchworth Station building under construction circa 1926. The red circle indicates one of the brick pillars that remains on site. Picture courtesy of the Lady Denman Halloran Archive and Queanbeyan & District Historical Museum Society

A perfectly serviceable building seems an unlikely candidate for the tip. Perhaps it was dismantled and given a second life as a shed or outbuilding somewhere nearby.

So far, its fate remains a mystery. Someone must know.

Local history sleuth Steve Glaznieks also recently walked out to the site, finding some bricks and metal rods, but not much else.

Part of the foundations at the ruins of the former Letchworth Station. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

"It really is a ghost station," he says.

He's not wrong.

Barely a stone's throw from busy Lanyon Drive, and wedged between Jerrabomberra East Grassland Reserve and Queanbeyan Nature Reserve, the site is a reminder of just how thoroughly a place can disappear.

A century ago, Letchworth was supposed to be the gateway to a thriving new community on Canberra's doorstep.

Letchworth Station building under construction in 1926. Picture courtesy of the Lady Denman Halloran Archive and Queanbeyan & District Historical Museum Society

Instead, the houses never came, the passengers never arrived and, although the line to Cooma remained open for another 33 years, trains eventually stopped calling at Letchworth.

On Thursday, there was nobody else within cooee to blow out the candles. Just a stiff breeze sweeping across the grassland.

But perhaps that was the most fitting centenary tribute for a railway station that spent much of its short life waiting for a town that never arrived.

End of the line

Anne Forrest reminisces about the day she caught a train from Letchworth Railway Station in 1956. Picture supplied

Anne Forrest (nee Morrison) was just nine years old when she boarded a train at Letchworth railway station in 1956, possibly making her the last passenger to depart from this now-abandoned whistle-stop.

Seventy years later, Anne can still picture the scene, though she had little idea of its historical significance at the time.

"The fact that it may have been the last train that stopped there would have been significant for my father and mother, but I was probably unaware," she recalls.

Living just a few hundred metres away, Anne was driven across the paddock by her father to catch the train to Sydney, where she was heading to stay with her grandmother during the school holidays.

Anne suspects her father, who valued historic milestones, deliberately organised her departure from Letchworth rather than nearby Queanbeyan, because he knew it might be the station's final service.

Travelling alone was nothing new for Anne, who made several such journeys during her childhood. Armed with a book, a cut lunch and a drink prepared by her mother, she was well equipped for the adventure. She assumes the train guard kept an eye on her during the lengthy journey.

Site of the former Letchworth Railway Station this week. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

Her strongest memory, however, is of the scenery. "All I remember about the actual journey is that wonderful countryside between here and Sydney, the green hills, and this side of Bungendore through the cuttings."

The seldom-used station was once a familiar playground for Anne and her siblings, who knew the timetable and were warned not to play nearby when trains were due.

For Anne, Letchworth was simply the little station down the paddock. Today, her memories help bring back to life a place that has all but disappeared from the landscape.

Do you remember Letchworth? If so, I'd love to know.

WHERE IN CANBERRA?

Does this gate serve a purpose when you can just drive around it? Picture by Bradley Temperley

Rating: Hard

Cryptic Clue: Little wonder Jack went to the rabbitohs

How to enter: Email your guess along with your name and address to tym@iinet.net.au. The first correct email received after 10am, Saturday October 24 wins a double pass to Dendy, the Home of Quality Cinema.

Corin Dam lookout. Picture by Tim the Yowie Man

Last week: Congratulations to Rebecca Scouller of Forrest who was the first reader to correctly identify last week's mystery photo as the lookout at Corin Dam. Rebecca admits she likes the "kind of retro vibe" of the lookout which was presumably built in the late 1960s - at the same time the dam was built. As pointed out by Paul Tarrant of Chisholm, the concrete structure is "hidden away on the side of the hill overlooking the dam wall", making it easy to miss. Paul notes most visitors drive straight across the wall and skip stopping on the way home, but it is easily accessed on foot via the first car park on the left. "Not much has changed up there over the last 55 years I've been going up there," reveals Paul, noting the area's lasting charm and the cool air that hits you when dropping into the valley.

Name change

+ In initial planning for the Letchworth development, it was called Howard.

+ After the Letchworth Station closed on May 1, 1956, the area stayed mostly rural for decades. This changed in the early 1990s when the government built a large housing estate in west Queanbeyan. In 1998, the local council tried to make Letchworth an official, separate suburb. However, later councils changed it back to being part of 'Queanbeyan West' to keep mail and council services simple. Nonetheless, the name lives on with the Letchworth Community Centre on Miller Street, the Letchworth Regional Sporting Field on Maloney Street and the nearby Letchworth Estate Reserve, which is popular with the local community.

Literary Connections

In Nevil Shute's novel In the Wet, protagonist David Anderson - an elite RAAF pilot serving the Queen - buys a new house in a modern, idyllic suburb called Letchworth.

Written in 1953, but set in 1983, Shute imagined a future where the British Royal Family relocated part of their court to the Canberra/Queanbeyan region (specifically building a royal residence in nearby Tharwa).

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