YALLOURN - A PLANNED TOWN - 1920s-1983 - Part 2 (supplied by the Yallourn North Action Group)

Educational needs were recognized as early as 12 February, 1922 when the Yallourn State School No 4085 was opened with 13 pupils. The first school building was a weatherboard cottage at No 4 Hillside. By 1923 enrolment had reached 139 pupils, they came from the Camps and outlying areas, so a move to new and bigger buildings in Outlook Road was needed. This would become the Secondary School when a new Primary school was opened in 1932, on the corner of Fairfield Avenue and Banksia Crescent. A Catholic Primary School had also opened in the St Therese’s church hall staffed by two sisters of St Joseph.

1926 saw the Post Office and State Savings Bank opened for business, they occupied corresponding sites on opposite sides of the town square and were complementary in design. They were double-storied, the upper stories were residences for the bank manager and postmaster. Prior to the opening of the town post office, postal facilities had operated at Eastern and Western Camps. The Yallourn Post Office closed for business on 31/1/1980. Yallourn Railway line was opened in 1922 as a branch line headed north from the main Gippsland line, built to transport goods to and from the Power Station and Briquette Factory. People would often walk the line collecting the briquettes that had fallen from the wagons, they would use the briquettes to heat their homes during the winter.

In 1954 Queen Elizabeth II visited the valley. She arrived at Yallourn by train on the original Hernes Oak loop line. By 1955 a new line was constructed from Moe as the old Hernes Oak line was taken out of service due to the expansion of the open cut when the main line to Melbourne was completed. The old route via Hernes Oak was initially retained with empty trains, using it with loaded trains using the new line to return to Melbourne. A new signal box at Yallourn marshaling yard was opened in December 1955, allowing two way operation on the new line, the old line
falling into disuse but not removed until March 1957 when the SECV began to expand the Yallourn open cut mine across the alignment. At the Hernes Oak end, part of the former line was retained as a dead end siding. Despite the expansion of the mine, briquette traffic began to decline, with power generation at Yallourn growing in demand instead. Due to the decrease in railway traffic the signal box and interlocking at Yallourn was removed in May 1968 and in April 1974, the substation was taken out of use, overhead power being fed from Moe. In October 1978, electric trains were banned from the line and in March 1979, work began on removing the overhead wiring. The railway station in Yallourn was not a regular passenger line and was only used on special occasions and for school excursions. (The line from Moe is now part of the Moe to Yallourn rail trail, constructed in the 1990s, which starts at the Botanic Gardens in Moe and takes a leisurely 8km trail to the Yallourn W Power Station.)

In 1928 volunteers would begin work on draining the “Melbourne Swamp” to create the sporting ovals. These ovals would later be classed as among the best in the state. In 1955, the touring MCC team played for three days on one of the manicured ovals and in 1956, 13,000 people turned up to see international athletes stage a mini Olympics. In November 1971, No 1 oval flooded enough for Dan Suckling and Ross Simpson to take their boat and water ski on it. The oval was drained in time for the next football match to be played on it.