Flashback: Railway Refreshment Rooms staff in Seymour, 1930.
Seymour Railway Refreshment Rooms were built in 1873 after the Goulburn Rail Bridge opened.
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By 1875, Seymour received six trains a day, a large number of guests needing refreshments.
Service had to be prompt, as passengers had only 15 minutes on the platform.
The refreshment rooms, like the trains, ran like a well-oiled machine to meet the demands of a high volume of customers in a short amount of time.
The Refreshment Branch’s 61 refreshment rooms served 3,250,000 meals annually.
The Seymour buffet could seat 150 passengers and the dining room could seat 112.
At their busiest, a total of 34 staff worked in the refreshment rooms and lived in separate quarters on site.
Victorian Railways were a self-sufficient business and the refreshment rooms were no exception. Victorian Railways ran the businesses that supplied the dairy, poultry, bread and meat.
By 1976 the rooms were in decline, with 11 staff serving only light refreshments.
In October 1981 on-board catering was introduced and the rooms were shut.
They were re-opened in November 2008 for use by passengers on the Albury/Wodonga line during the upgrade of the line.
Stylish: Inside the dining room of the former Railway Refreshment Rooms in Seymour.
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