Ports Victoria manages the heritage-listed Station Pier in Port Melbourne. The current pier opened in 1930, replacing the former railway pier built in 1854. It has played an important role in Melbourne’s maritime history ever since.
Station Pier was Victoria’s welcoming point for generations of migrants, particularly after World War II. It was also where many Australian troops departed.
Today Station Pier is Victoria’s premier cruise shipping location, welcoming the majority of cruise ships and more than 300,000 passengers and crew each year.
And it continues to play an important role for the Royal Australian Navy as its preferred berth, and for allied Navy Ship visits to Melbourne.
To keep Station Pier as a safe and operational shipping facility, Ports Victoria has a regular maintenance program. At 600 metres in length, it is the largest timber-piled wharf structure still functioning as a passenger terminal in Australia.
Over the past year, the Ports Victoria maintenance team has undertaken significant refurbishment and maintenance works. The focus of these works has not just been about keeping the pier welcoming the current fleet of regional cruise ships but also retaining its heritage – so it continues to look like it did in its younger days.
This year the team has undertaken works to restore heritage features including:
- Repainting some parts of the building in its heritage colours.
- Repairing historic crests located at the Gatehouse.
- Commenced repainting the West Finger Pier kiosk, where many people in years gone by bought snacks while visiting the beach here, saying goodbye to travelling loved ones or about to set sail themselves.
- Functional repairs to decking, gates and facades have also been undertaken.
- Along with major maintenance works on the boardwalk and pergola on the eastern side of Station Pier to ensure they are safe for the public to access.
- The outer terminal building has also been given a facelift inside and out – as it’s where visitors to Victoria enter our state via a cruise ship.
- Passenger wayfinding and visitor accessibility has been improved with a significantly widened pedestrian pathway between the gatehouse and inner terminal, pedestrian wayfinding on footpaths, additional pedestrian crossings and improved accessibility to toilets. We’ve also refurbished the lifts at the inner terminal.
We’ve undertaken annual remediation works to support timber piles, beams and fenders so the pier continues to meet the operational loading requirements for our defence and cruise ship industries.
Between cruise seasons, essential maintenance work takes place beneath the pier and to its structure, including the ongoing rehabilitation of its piles – there are approximately 7,400 of them. In the past 10 years, we’ve repaired over 2,000 of them.
The timber piles have stood the test of time, with durable timber types including turpentine, red wood, blackbutt and grey iron gum.
Currently open to the public at weekends, we encourage you to come and visit Station Pier and immerse yourself in its rich history.