A photograph of the original Longwarry Railway Station in 1911.

The look back in time comes after a second platform was built at the current train station. In 1867, a road of sorts had been constructed from Melbourne to Sale. This road is now referred to as the Old Sale Rd and sections of it are still used today.
Staging posts were set up along this main road, with hotels, a few houses and businesses to service travellers on the 36 hour journey. Such businesses included blacksmiths who could repair carts that continually broke down on the less than perfect conditions of the road and reshoe horses.
All of this changed with the decision to construct a railway line from Oakleigh to Sale. This line was constructed further south on the very edge of the swamp land.
However, construction of the line was not without its doubters at the time.
The proposal to build a rail line through Gippsland caused much argument in political circles. One politician was recorded as saying "It would not even pay for axle grease".
The small communities that had developed along the Sale road gravitated south to be beside the railway line.
The Oakleigh-Gippsland line was built in four sections, the last was the Bunyip to Moe stretch. A contract for this section was approved in 1875 and it reached Bunyip in 1877.
The third section between Bunyip and Longwarry faced several difficulties. A bridge across the Bunyip River had to be built, the swampy conditions were a problem, and the contractor become bankrupt. A new contractor was engaged and a workers camp was set up at Rock Cutting. Finally, the river was crossed and the final section to Morwell opened for business on March 1, 1878.
By 1883, Donald Fraser had established a sawmill close to the line. Edwin Witton followed and established a brickworks producing thousands of bricks each week. The Longwarry Pastoral Lease, about 15km to the south of the line, had established cattle yards.
After many requests from Fraser, the railways department decided a siding to load the timber, bricks and cattle would be constructed. It was named Fraser Siding and was located in what is now Bennett St, opposite the intersection with McCrae St.
Finally, it was deemed necessary to open a railway station and the Longwarry Railway Station was opened on July 1, 1881.
The track east of the station to Drouin was duplicated in 1952, but the section between Bunyip and Longwarry remained single track. This was because the bridge over the Bunyip River was not duplicated.
The line through Longwarry to Warragul was electrified in July 1954, but electrification was removed in December 1998.
In the recent works, a short section of line was duplicated as far as Longwarry Station, with the second platform added. However, there is still no second bridge across the Bunyip River.
Photograph and information courtesy of Longwarry and District History Group.
The group also acknowledge the work of Clarrie McDermid for information provided in book "Fraser Siding to Longwarry - 1978".