St James railway station, railway station in Sydney, New South Wales, Australia
St James is an underground railway station in central Sydney located beneath the streets near Hyde Park. The station has a functional structure with platforms, stairs, and lifts connecting it to street level, and links to the City Circle line.
The station opened on December 20, 1926, after four years of construction and was part of a plan to create an underground loop around the city. In the 1950s, the City Circle was completed, changing the station's role from a terminus to a through station.
The name comes from the nearby St James Church. The station still displays its original 1920s architecture with classical details that reflect the early twentieth-century design of the city.
The station is fully underground and accessed via stairs, lifts, and ramps from Elizabeth Street above. It has facilities for people with disabilities, including lifts, ramps, and tactile guidance systems for visually impaired visitors.
Beneath the station lies an underground lake called St James Lake, stretching about a kilometer through a flooded tunnel with depths reaching about 5 meters. This hidden water body is a remarkable remnant of the early tunnel infrastructure, and engineers still discuss ways to use it for sustainable city purposes today.
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