Hartwell railway station

In the 1850s, Hartwell was a small hamlet named after the nearby Back Creek. Minutes of meetings of the Boroondara District Roads Board noted that "c/- Irwin Hotel, Back Creek" was used as a polling station. Hartwell is named after one of the early estates in the area, Hartwell House, the residence of James Irwin. In the mid-1850s, he owned and operated Irwin's Hotel, which was on the corner of Norwood (now Toorak) and Wattle Valley roads, and was demolished about the time the railway line was built.^[5][6]

The original station was described as using a very small, galvanised iron shed for passenger shelter, mounted on a short, cinder-surfaced platform.^[7]

For a couple of decades after the station opened, Hartwell passengers were served by a train consisting of a locomotive and one or two carriages, dubbed the "Deepdene Dasher", which operated between Deepdene and Ashburton stations. After the line from Camberwell to Ashburton was electrified in 1924, Hartwell was served by electric trains on the Ashburton line, which was extended to Alamein in 1948.^[8]

The station building was originally at Walhalla, the terminus of the Walhalla line, but was moved to Hartwell in December 1938, six years before the Walhalla line closed in 1944.^[4] Until the Alamein line was converted from single to double track in 1954 (to Ashburton) and 1955 (to Riversdale),^[4] Hartwell was the only crossing loop on the line.

On 27 December 1948, an Alamein-bound train was derailed at the Flinders Street (up) end of the station, near a set of points. While the track was blocked, a shuttle service was provided between Hartwell and Alamein, but passengers going beyond Hartwell had to take trams.^[9]

Hartwell has an island platform with two faces and is served by Alamein line trains.^[10]