The hidden way to access platforms at Melbourne Central Station

Everyone knows about the lifts and escalators to access the underground Melbourne Central Station.

But it seems that far fewer people know about the ‘manual’ way to access your train.

In the north-west corner of the concourse for the Elizabeth Street entrance to the station, you will find a small entrance to a set of stairs.

Entrance to stairs from Elizabeth Street concourse at Melbourne Central Station

These will take you through a short level corridor before leading down to Platforms 1 & 2.


Corridor in stairs to access platforms at Melbourne Central Station Stairs on Platform 1 at Melbourne Central Station

The stairs then continue down to Platforms 3 & 4.

Stairs down from Platforms 1 and 2 to Platforms 3 and 4 at Melbourne Central Station

The location of the stairwell is hard to describe without a diagram or floorplan. But it is notoriously difficult to find any drawings or details about the City Loop or its stations – presumably for security reasons.

For Melbourne Central Station, the information from Melbourne Central Shopping Centre is spectacularly useless. It doesn’t even have the station marked or acknowledged on its official floorplans or centre map.

However, in this submission to the DELWP Melbourne Metro Inquiry (original here), the owners of the centre provide a floorplan that gives a lot of detail for the concourse level.

You can see the location of the stairwell shown with a red arrow in the floorplan closeup below.

Black and white floorplan of Elizabeth Street concourse at Melbourne Central Station with a red arrow showing the location of the stairwell

They are located close to the double set of escalators immediately behind the main gateline. But despite this quite prominent location they seem to go unnoticed by almost everyone (including me until recently).

Flagstaff Station also has stairs to access platforms, but they are more numerous and obvious. Parliament has stairs at each entrance to access the station concourses but not down to the platforms – probably because of their significant depth.

5 Comments

Join the discussion and tell us your opinion.

Marcusreply
25 May, 2020 at 10:44 am

I wonder which feature of Melbourne Central station is more obscure – these stairs, or the La Trobe Street exit? 😛

Philipreply
26 May, 2020 at 11:12 am
– In reply to: Marcus

I’d say La Trobe St! I had no idea until I was researching for this post and came across your previous posts.

Nate Kilnoocreply
21 April, 2021 at 2:04 pm
– In reply to: Philip

Didn’t they remove the La Trobe St. exit a few years ago or is it still there?

Philipreply
24 April, 2021 at 8:39 pm

Yes they closed it for Metro Tunnel construction, but once the new State Library Station is finished there will be a lot of new entrances and tunnels around there: https://wongm.com/2017/12/connecting-melbourne-central-flinders-street-station-melbourne-metro/

Chris Creply
14 September, 2021 at 4:37 pm

One of the Latrobe St exits was still there, in March. There were 2 exits from the exit (or long hall to an exit) from near McDonald’s. One route exited on Melbourne Central side, one on the north side of Latrobe St. In 2019, the ramp to the exit on north side was changed & the exit on Latrobe St was further west along Latrobe St, but it hadn’t been closed (for Metro Tunnel works).
Anyway, it’s quicker to use the Latrobe St exit from Melbourne Central SC lower lever than to use those others

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