__NOTOC__ The railway station located at Port Pirie South bore the name "Port Pirie" from when it was built in 1876 until it was superseded in 1902 by a

passenger station A train station, railway station, railroad station or depot is a railway facility where trains stop to load or unload passengers, freight or both. It generally consists of at least one platform, one track and a station building providing such ...

in the centre of Port Pirie. The new station was then assigned the name "Port Pirie railway station" and the original was named Port Pirie South railway station, in keeping with the naming of the adjacent Port Pirie South railway yards. The wooden station building was opened in 1876 at the terminus of the lightly engineered, 1067 mm (3 ft 6 in) gauge railway from Port Pirie – then a town of fewer than 1,000 people – into the rich agricultural hinterland of the Mid North. The need was to transport agricultural produce more cheaply to the port for export, mainly to

Great Britain Great Britain is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean off the northwest coast of continental Europe. With an area of , it is the largest of the British Isles, the largest European island and the ninth-largest island in the world. It is ...

, in sailing ships. The following year, Port Pirie's inaugural railway station was opened. A modest weatherboard building, it was placed at the north end of the railway yards, about 250 metres (270 yards) from the town's wharves. In addition to the building there were two locomotive sheds and a freight shed, coaling and watering facilities, a passing loop in front of the station building, and a few sidings. Since the railway was such an advance over horse-drawn wagons or bullock drays over unmade roads, traffic soon increased significantly, especially when in the following year the line reached the nearest town in the hinterland –

Gladstone William Ewart Gladstone ( ; 29 December 1809 – 19 May 1898) was a British statesman and Liberal politician. In a career lasting over 60 years, he served for 12 years as Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, spread over four non-conse ...

, 52 km (32 mi) east of the port – and, more so,

Petersburg Petersburg, or Petersburgh, may refer to: Places Australia *Petersburg, former name of Peterborough, South Australia Canada * Petersburg, Ontario Russia *Saint Petersburg, sometimes referred to as Petersburg United States *Peterborg, U.S. Virg ...

,As a result of anti-German sentiment during the First World War, Petersburg was renamed Peterborough in 1917. a further 64 km (40 mi) east, in 1881. In the years that followed, more trackage was constructed in the yards to accommodate the increased tonnages and variety of freight. The yards eventually became known as "Port Pirie South Yard", then many years later, "Pirie Main Yard". Note that the title of the publication contains "mixed gauge" but it is referenced as "multi gauge". In 1884, the South Australian Government, quickly realising the importance of new silver-lead-zinc discoveries at

Broken Hill Broken Hill is an inland mining city in the far west of outback New South Wales, Australia. It is near the border with South Australia on the crossing of the Barrier Highway (A32) and the Silver City Highway (B79), in the Barrier Range. It is ...

, passed an Act authorising a railway extending from the Port Pirie line at Petersburg to the New South Wales border at Cockburn – thus forestalling the prospect of the New South Wales Government building a line to a port in that state.Inter-colonial rivalry was exemplified by the New South Wales Government's refusal to allow the South Australian Government to operate a railway over the border to Broken Hill, -long away. This obstacle was overcome only by the incorporation of a company to undertake the task. The railway reached Cockburn, 351 km (218 mi) from Port Pirie, in 1888. The first Port Pirie furnaces began operating in 1889 and the smelter was completed in 1892,The smelter at Broken Hill was dismantled in 1897. relegating a competing proposal from

Port Adelaide Port Adelaide is a port-side region of Adelaide, approximately northwest of the Adelaide CBD. It is also the namesake of the City of Port Adelaide Enfield council, a suburb, a federal and state electoral division and is the main port for the ...

to history. The line soon became the most important of the

South Australian Railways South Australian Railways (SAR) was the statutory corporation through which the Government of South Australia built and operated railways in South Australia from 1854 until March 1978, when its non-urban railways were incorporated into Austr ...

. It was a vast improvement in the economics and efficiency of transporting the ore compared with the bullock drays used previously. The ore traffic and the smelter were to have a profound effect on the town, turning it from a bustling small port into an industrial city. Since the 1880s, passenger trains had run 750 metres (800 yards) beyond Port Pirie South to a more convenient locality in Ellen Street, in the centre of the town, where tracks had been laid for traffic to and from the smelters, located a further 400 metres (440 yards) north. A small tin-shed ticket office was erected. In 1902, a new, flamboyant stone building in the Victorian Pavilion style replaced the shed. Ellen Street station operated concurrently with Port Pirie South station until the latter was closed following the opening of the Solomontown station in 1911. ''Subsequent station (concurrent 1902–1911): Ellen Street''.

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{{reflist Port Pirie Buildings and structures in Port Pirie Railway stations in South Australia Disused railway stations in South Australia Railway stations in Australia opened in 1876

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