Dunbible Station

 

Railway construction workers and their families outside Bourke’s Store in Dunbible, C. 1890s. Tweed Regional Museum Collection M8-32

Dunbible Station opened with the rest of the Lismore to Tweed railway line on the 24th of December 1894. The Station serviced a very small community, predominantly farmland for dairy, pigs, and cattle. It was a 17-minute journey from Dunbible to Murwillumbah.

Plans for Dunbible Station Facilities. C. 1894. NSW Railways.

The Station was considerably basic, consisting of a waiting room, a ladies room, basic toilet facilities and a storeroom. Local residents rallied for upgraded facilities over the years, in the early 1920s requests were made for a cream shed and pig yards to be erected alongside the station as the current facilities meant the cream was being placed on the platform next to the toilets.

Prior to the Railway being established, Dunbible was quite isolated, any travel was done on horseback. In the 1870s, resident Eli Richards rode his horse all the way to Brisbane to collect raisins for a Christmas treat. The railway brought prosperous new opportunities to the area, particularly in agriculture. Cream gathered from cows in Dunbible in the morning could arrive at the NORCO factory in the blink of an eye, halving the work for the local dairy farmers. 

Dunbible Creek Bridge

Dunbible Creek Bridge.

When the railway line was constructed in 1894, it went from Murwillumbah to the south. Dunbible Creek would have been the first significant obstacle railway construction workers encountered. This bridge is an example of the work of NSW Railways Chief Engineer, Henry Deane, who was responsible for the design of the rail line. It is a Californian Steel Pratt Truss Superstructure of 65.32 metres in length. Very few bridges along the railway line were steel trusses like this one. Most of the bridges were simple wooden constructions.