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CROYDON STATION UPGRADE | A Historic Rebuild at the Heart of Melbourne’s East

Project Highlight

New Croydon Station — A Historic Rebuild at the Heart of Melbourne’s East

When a station first opened in 1882, nobody could have imagined that 142 years later it would be completely demolished and rebuilt from the ground up as part of one of Victoria’s most ambitious infrastructure programs. But that’s exactly what happened at Croydon, and we’re proud to have played our part in it.

The Problem: A Level Crossing That Had Outgrown Its Time

At the heart of Croydon’s town centre sat the Coolstore Road level crossing, a pinch point where five roads converged, boom gates regularly brought traffic to a standstill, and roughly 10,000 vehicles and 100 train services passed through every weekday, creating traffic snarls in the heart of Croydon’s shopping precinct. The station itself, while upgraded to premium status back in 1996, was a ground-level facility that was simply incompatible with the modern, grade-separated rail corridor that Croydon deserved.

The Engineering Solution: Rail Over Road

The chosen method to remove the Coolstore Road level crossing was to elevate the rail line entirely, building a new rail bridge over the road rather than lowering the road beneath it. The Level Crossing Removal Project announced in July 2021 that a 687-metre-long rail bridge would be constructed over the road, a structure that would fundamentally change the urban geography of central Croydon.

The engineering challenge was significant. A 105-tonne piling rig was brought to site to dig 28 holes up to 35 metres deep — equivalent to a 10-storey building — which were filled with more than 1,000 cubic metres of concrete to form the foundations supporting the rail bridge. Rather than conventional pile cap foundations, the project used monopile construction. Unlike traditional bridge foundations that use a cluster of smaller piles joined with a concrete cap, each monopile is a single, larger-diameter pile installed without a cap — a method that reduces the footprint of the foundation works and limits disruption to the surrounding urban environment.

In total, 28 monopiles and 20 abutment piles were required to support the bridge span and manage the transition from elevated structure back down to ground level at each end. The old station buildings were demolished during the works, removing almost 1,200 tonnes of material in the process, before construction of the new station buildings commenced.

The New Croydon Station and Transport Hub

The new station that rose from the demolition site is a world away from its predecessor. The new Croydon Station features two elevated side platforms, four lifts, stairs, public toilets, a waiting room, two station entrances, and 92 bicycle parking spaces — including 33 open-air hoops and an enclosed Parkiteer cage.

The station design drew heavily on community feedback, with bluestone paving, wooden seating and glazed brick buildings incorporated to complement the character of the nearby Main Street shopping precinct. Open spaces were deliberately designed to create better sightlines, with more CCTV and upgraded lighting throughout to create a safer precinct for commuters.

The station is the centrepiece of the broader Croydon Transport Hub, which when fully completed delivered: a 14-bay bus interchange, car parking for 284 vehicles and 10 motorcycles, and new road connections linking Croydon’s town centre on both sides of the rail line. The station precinct also features 650 metres of new walking and cycling paths and more than 70,000 new trees, shrubs and grasses.

The new road connection — running from Kent Avenue to Lacey Street beneath the elevated rail line — effectively reunited the two halves of Croydon’s retail precinct that had been divided by the rail corridor for decades, and replaced the congested and chaotic Coolstore Road roundabout for good.

Government Spend and Broader Program Context

The Croydon works were delivered as part of Victoria’s Level Crossing Removal Project, one of the largest urban rail programs in Australia’s history. The Croydon station rebuild was packaged with three other level crossing removals — Dublin Road in Ringwood East, Bedford Road in Ringwood, and Cave Hill Road in Lilydale. The contract covering the Dublin Road, Coolstore Road and Cave Hill Road removals was valued at $572 million, awarded as a design-and-construct alliance.

The broader Level Crossing Removal Project is committed to removing 110 level crossings across Melbourne, with the Lilydale Line becoming the first metropolitan train line in Melbourne to be entirely boom gate free — achieved a full year ahead of schedule. More than 50 new stations have now been built across the metropolitan network as part of the program, with Croydon one of six new stations delivered on the Lilydale Line since 2017.

The Coolstore Road level crossing was removed in July 2024, and the new Croydon Station opened to passengers in August 2024, with the full transport hub — including the 14-bay bus interchange — completing its rollout by November 2024.

Our Role — Supplying the Station Signage

A newly built premium station at the scale of Croydon carries a significant signage requirement. From construction zone traffic management signage during the multi-stage build, through to the permanent wayfinding, platform, safety and regulatory signage that passengers interact with every day — every sign on a project like this must meet exacting standards for compliance, durability and legibility.

Uniform Safety Signs was engaged to supply signage for the Croydon Station upgrade. Our scope covered signage manufactured to the relevant Australian Standards and Public Transport Victoria specifications — including the strict requirements that apply to premium-classified stations on the metropolitan network. Premium station designation carries specific obligations around passenger information, accessibility compliance, and visual consistency across the Metro Trains network, and our team ensured every product supplied met those obligations.

On a live construction site with a phased delivery program — old station demolished, new station assembled in modules, rail bridge built in stages, road connections opened progressively — signage coordination is not trivial. Getting the right signs to the right location at the right time, without causing delays to the construction programme, is exactly the kind of challenge our logistics and production team is built to handle.

The Bigger Picture

More than 1,600 people use Croydon Station daily, and 72,000 passengers travel on the Lilydale and Belgrave lines each weekday, making it the second busiest rail corridor in the metropolitan network. The investment made at Croydon will serve those passengers — and the tens of thousands more who will move into Melbourne’s eastern suburbs in the years ahead — for generations to come.

Being associated with infrastructure of that permanence and significance is something our team takes seriously. We’re proud that our signs are now part of the fabric of the new Croydon Station, and we look forward to supporting more projects of this calibre across Victoria’s rail and transport network.

Proud to supply the signs that help people find their way.