Although the locals along with their neighbours in Northcote had fought for many years for a railway service, there was certainly no consensus of opinion as to where Preston actually was!
Then classified as a Shire (the lowest level of local governmant authority), Preston was effectively split in two: residents of the area around Regent Street claimed their area was Preston, as it was the original settlement when the name was first used from around 1854; but the citizens of Gowerville (South Preston) between Dundas and Bell streets also insisted the name on the basis that it was the developing part of the district and “brought Preston a mile closer to Melbourne”.
Stations on the new rail line were accordingly planned for Bell-street, Regent-street and at North Preston at the water tanks.
There were a number of public meetings where residents of one of the two settlements demanded “their” local station – at Bell or Regent Street (the Railways Department’s original choice) be called Preston.
Preston Shire Council added to the mix by announcing plans to build a Shire Hall neatly wedged between the two and it wasn’t until June, 1889, just three months before the line opened that a number of the residents successfully petitioned the Railway Commissioners to construct a station at Murray Road.
An adjourned meeting of the Preston Shire Council on 9 September agreed to recommend the names of “Preston” for the station at Bell Street, “North Preston” for Regent Street and “The Reservoir” for the northern-most station, completely ignoring the new addition at Murray Road.
“On this becoming known, a strong opposition was excited which found vent in a large deputation to the Commissioners. The Commissioners, however, declined to take the position of shuttle-cocks and referred the deputation back to the Council”. Collingwood and Weekly Courier, 19 September, 1889
A special Council meeting was called the following week where it was pointed out that adopting the name “Preston” for the station at Bell Street would cause confusion in the postal system as for that purpose, a defined portion of the Shire was called “South Preston” and the proposed “Preston” was actually within “South Preston”.
The Council did a neat somersault with a very low degree of difficulty – Bell Street became “South Preston” and Regent Street was promoted to “Preston”: someone finally remembered the unnamed orphan in Murray Road, a petition presented requesting the imaginative name of “Middle Preston” which the Mercury report suggested “we understood to be informally consented to”.
Even that wasn’t enough. A further meeting demanded the original names be restored; but the Council ignored the petition, Cr William Paterson, a long-time campaigner for the railway summing up with a rather more pragmatic approach”… we have a railway, we have a station, that’s enough for me”.
With the proposed opening just two weeks away, the Railways Department neatly dodged the controversy over the naming rights for Preston by prefixing each of the three local stations with the title – Preston (Bell), Preston (Murray) and Preston (Regent) as well as Preston (Reservoir)!
Even then, the locals weren’t happy with confusing names often meaning parcels were delivered to the wrong station. A similar difficulty existed closer to the city with Northcote (now Merri) and Middle Northcote (now Northcote) proving equally confusing, and even after the former was changed to Merri, there were still problems, one report suggesting that the Railways finally acceded to having Murray renamed to Preston because of the audible similarity of the names “Merri” and “Murray”!
The same issue of the Mercury suggested that many of the stations were not complete, noting in part that gas lighting had still to be provided to most.
There was substantially less fuss to the north – in August, with the northern section still four months from completion, the Department invited the Whittlesea Council to name the four stations provided in the Shire of Whittlesea, those nominated South Morang, South Yan Yean, North Yan Yean and Whittlesea Township.
The Department opted to drop the “North” and South Yan Yean was later changed to Mernda for further clarification.
Up until 1908, commuters on the Preston-Whittlesea line had a somewhat convoluted journey to Melbourne; after crossing the Merri Cree, the line branched westwards with stations at North Fitzroy (originally called “Nicholson” and North Carlton (“Lang-street) before linking up with the existing Coburg line at Royal Park, then via Flemington, Macauley and North Melbourne to spenser-street.
The circuitous route added just on ten minutes to that of the later route through Collingwood and the western section of Richmond; a sour point for locals who were in most cases faced with a cable tram trip from the station at Spencer-street to the entertainment, shopping and business centre of the city.
