Flinders Street Station is the central railway station of the suburban rail network of Melbourne, Australia. It is on the corner of Flinders and Swanston Streets next to the Yarra River in the heart of the city, stretching from Swanston Street to Queen Street and covering two city blocks. Each weekday, over 110,000 commuters and 1,500 trains pass through the station. It is the most used metropolitan railway station in Melbourne, in 2009 there was an average of 85,100 passenger boardings per day. Flinders Street is serviced by Metro's suburban services, and V/Line regional services to Gippsland.

Flinders Street Station is a cultural icon to Melbourne, frequently used in imagery representing the city. The Melburnian idiom "I'll meet you under the clocks" refers to the row of clocks above the main entrance, which indicate the departure time of the next train on each line; another being "I'll meet you on the steps", referring to the wide staircase leading into the main entrance. Both are a popular meeting places as it is at the intersection of two of the city's busiest thoroughfares. The station is listed on the Victorian Heritage Register.

The first railway station to occupy the Flinders Street site was called Melbourne Terminus, and was a collection of weatherboard train sheds. It was completed in 1854 and was officially opened on September 12 by the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir Charles Hotham. The terminus was the first city railway station in Australia, and the opening day saw the first steam train trip in the country. It travelled to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne), over the now redeveloped Sandridge Bridge, travelling along the now light rail Port Melbourne line.

In 1882 the government decided to build a new central passenger station to replace the existing ad-hoc construction. A design competition was finally held in 1899 with 17 entries received. The competition was essentially for the detailed design of the station building, since the location of the concourse, entrances, the track and platform layout, the type of platform roofing and even the room layout to some extent was already decided.

This article is licensed under the Creative Commons BY-SA License. It uses material from Wikipedia content.