Highett railway station is located on the

Frankston line The Frankston railway line is a 42.7 km commuter rail passenger train service in Melbourne, Victoria. It operates between Flinders Street in the Melbourne central business district and Frankston through the south-eastern suburbs includi ...

Victoria Victoria most commonly refers to: * Victoria (Australia), a state of the Commonwealth of Australia * Victoria, British Columbia, provincial capital of British Columbia, Canada * Victoria (mythology), Roman goddess of Victory * Victoria, Seychelle ...

Australia Australia, officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a Sovereign state, sovereign country comprising the mainland of the Australia (continent), Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous List of islands of Australia, sma ...

. It serves the south-eastern

Melbourne Melbourne ( ; Boonwurrung/Woiwurrung: ''Narrm'' or ''Naarm'') is the capital and most populous city of the Australian state of Victoria, and the second-most populous city in both Australia and Oceania. Its name generally refers to a met ...

suburb of Highett, and opened on 19 December 1881 as Highett Road. It was renamed Highett on 14 December 1885.

History

Highett station opened when the railway line from Caulfield was extended to

Mordialloc Mordialloc is a beachside suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 24 km south-east of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Kingston local government area. Mordialloc recorded a population of 8,886 at the . H ...

. Like the suburb itself, the station was named after

William Highett William Highett (1807 – 29 November 1880) was a banker, landowner and politician in colonial Victoria. He was also a member of the Victorian Legislative Council. Early life Highett was born in Weymouth, Dorset, England, in December 1807. His p ...

, a local landowner and a member of the

Victorian Legislative Council The Victorian Legislative Council (VLC) is the upper house of the bicameral Parliament of Victoria, Australia, the lower house being the Legislative Assembly. Both houses sit at Parliament House in Spring Street, Melbourne. The Legislative Co ...

. The station was built with the endorsement of

Victorian Premier The premier of Victoria is the head of government in the Australian state of Victoria. The premier is appointed by the governor of Victoria, and is the leader of the political party able to secure a majority in the Victorian Legislative Assembly ...

Thomas Bent Sir Thomas Bent (7 December 1838 – 17 September 1909) was an Australian politician and the 22nd Premier of Victoria. Early life Bent was born in Penrith, New South Wales the eldest of four sons and two daughters of James Bent, a hotel-keeper ...

, who ordered the railway line be redirected through Highett, and also demanded a higher standard of departmental residences there than elsewhere. The current station building was erected in 1883 and 1884, and was refurbished in 1966. It was refurbished again in 1986, after it had been damaged by fire during the previous year. In 1925, a railway parcels van hit a car at the nearby Wickham Road

level crossing A level crossing is an intersection where a railway line crosses a road, Trail, path, or (in rare situations) airport runway, at the same level, as opposed to the railway line crossing over or under using an Overpass#Railway, overpass ...

, killing eight people in the car. The

gatekeeper A gatekeeper is a person who controls access to something, for example via a city gate or bouncer, or more abstractly, controls who is granted access to a category or status. Gatekeepers assess who is "in or out", in the classic words of managem ...

was found not guilty of a charge of manslaughter, the jury finding the incident was due to the fault of the system, and not human negligence. In 1932, there was a shootout between a

policeman A police officer (also called a policeman and, less commonly, a policewoman) is a warranted law employee of a police force. In most countries, "police officer" is a generic term not specifying a particular rank. In some, the use of the ...

and a burglar, who was killed. In 1973, a former wood yard and a lamp room were demolished. In 1985,

boom barrier A boom barrier, also known as a boom gate, is a bar, or pole pivoted to allow the boom to block vehicular or pedestrian access through a controlled point. Typically the tip of a boom gate rises in a vertical arc to a near vertical position. Boo ...

s replaced interlocked gates at the Highett Road level crossing, located at the down end of the station. The

signal box In signal processing, a signal is a function that conveys information about a phenomenon. Any quantity that can vary over space or time can be used as a signal to share messages between observers. The ''IEEE Transactions on Signal Processing'' ...

for the level crossing was also abolished during that time. On 4 May 2010, as part of the 2010/2011 State Budget, $83.7 million was allocated to upgrade Highett to a

premium station The Melbourne rail network is a passenger and freight train system in the city of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. The metropolitan passenger rail network is centred on the Melbourne CBD and consists of 222 stations across 16 lines, which ser ...

, along with nineteen others. However, in March 2011, that was scrapped by the Baillieu Government. In 2014, the

Victorian State Government The Victoria State Government, also referred to as just the Victorian Government, is the state-level authority for Victoria, Australia. Like all state governments, it is formed by three independent branches: the executive, the judicial, and th ...

launched a public safety initiative which involved

Protective Services Officers A police community support officer (PCSO; cy, swyddog cymorth cymunedol yr heddlu, SCCH), or as written in legislation community support officer (CSO; cy, swyddog cymorth cymunedol, SCC) is a uniformed member of police staff in England and Wal ...

(PSOs) patrolling railway stations at certain times of the day. On 1 June of that year, Highett was added to the list of patrolled stations. A PSO "pod" to provide an office and holding cell was also added to the station. In October 2017, two PSOs patrolling the station were shot at by a disgruntled 22-year-old, using a battery-powered mechanical handgun filled with

gel A gel is a semi-solid that can have properties ranging from soft and weak to hard and tough. Gels are defined as a substantially dilute cross-linked system, which exhibits no flow when in the steady-state, although the liquid phase may still di ...

pellets. One officer was struck in the temple, but was not seriously injured. The shooter, who fired from the balcony of an apartment overlooking the station, was arrested by police and charged with a variety of offences. It was announced in October 2022 that Highett would be

elevated An elevated railway or elevated train (also known as an el train for short) is a rapid transit railway with the Track (rail transport), tracks above street level on a viaduct or other elevated structure (usually constructed from steel, cast i ...

as part of a project to remove seven level crossings on the line. Further details, designs and a construction timeline were to be released closer to the opening of the new station in 2029.

Platforms and services

Highett has two

side platform A side platform (also known as a marginal platform or a single-face platform) is a platform positioned to the side of one or more railway tracks or guideways at a railway station, tram stop, or transitway. A station having dual side platforms ...

s. It is served by

trains. Platform 1: * all stations services to Flinders Street,

Werribee Werribee is a suburb in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, south-west of Melbourne's Central Business District, located within the City of Wyndham local government area. Werribee recorded a population of 50,027 at the 2021 census. Werribee i ...

and Williamstown Platform 2: * all stations services to Frankston

Transport links

Ventura Bus Lines Ventura Bus Lines is a large bus and coach operator in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, operating a fleet of 893 buses on 141 bus routes, including 2 SmartBus routes and 2 V/Line services. It commenced operations in December 1924. History Earl ...

operates two routes via Highett station, under contract to

Public Transport Victoria Public Transport Victoria (PTV) is the brand name for public transport in the Australian state of Victoria, Australia, Victoria. It was the trading name of the Go Public Transport Development Authority (PTDA), a now-defunct statutory authorit ...

: * : Hampton station – Carrum station * : Hampton station – Berwick station

Gallery

File:Highett Station 2021.jpg, Northbound view from Platform 2, September 2021

References

External links