Train Station

Pine needles and leaf litter have settled thickly across the timber floorboards of the open veranda at the miniature train station at Waratah Park, moss creeping along the boards near the left wall. Horizontal timber cladding lines the interior face, faded and worn, and corrugated iron overhead is carried on exposed wooden beams. Gaps along the outer edge frame the surrounding forest canopy. Nothing about the scene suggests recent use. Waratah Park occupies 12.6 hectares of Crown land at Duffys Forest, NSW, adjoining Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park to the north and west. The site was originally established in 1967 as a filming location for Skippy the Bush Kangaroo, the television series produced by Fauna Productions and broadcast nationally from February 1968. After production wrapped following 91 episodes in 1969, Warringah Council granted land use access for the site to operate as an animal park and entertainment area. Waratah Park opened to the public in January 1970. The miniature train and its station were built as part of the recreational infrastructure developed during the tourism period, offering short circuit rides around the park grounds. The exact construction date is not recorded in the heritage documentation, but the station is consistent with the visitor facilities developed after the wildlife park opened. It is not listed among the site's State-heritage-significant structures under NSW State Heritage Register listing number 01944, granted on 27 February 2015. That listing focuses on the Ranger Headquarters building and its associated television set, which were purpose-built in 1967 for the original production. The wildlife park's business failed and the park closed to the public in 2006. By 2010, all wildlife had been removed from the site. Ownership transferred to the Metropolitan Local Aboriginal Land Council on 28 August 2014 under the Aboriginal Land Rights Act 1983. Sydney Wildlife now operates a rehabilitation facility on the grounds, entirely supported by donations with no government funding. This photograph was made in 2017. The station veranda records what the tourist infrastructure looked like more than a decade after the last visitors left.