Prisoner of Melbourne: Flinders Street Station

In the opening of Episode 1, aired February 27, 1979, Karen Travers and Lynn Warner arrive at Flinders Street Railway Station while housewife Bea Smith hangs out the wash in another part of town. They are the everywomen through which an unimaginable environment becomes an imaginable horror.

All suburban lines lead to Flinders Station, southwest corner of Swanston and Flinders. The station gave us easy access to Prisoner: Cell Block H locations in Prahran, Spotswood, Nunawading, Ferntree Gully, and Box Hill. We also visited Abbotsford, Fitzroy, Kew, Coburg, and other suburbs on our quest for Prisoner sites in addition to the Channel 10/Wentworth building, also in Nunawading.

Built in 1910, the neo-classic Flinders Street Station is the oldest metropolitan depot in Australia. The original station on this site was built in 1854.

Flinders Street Station is a Melbourne icon invoking the 250,000 people who pass through here every day.

On our trip in Oz, as Australia is known around the world, we found Flinders to be a worthy yellow brick road and the nexus of our journey.

“Meet you under the clocks.” Mister Melbourne has a mate a for San Francisco’s St. Francis Hotel clock tradition.