Direction of travel on metropolitan lines below between stations on the City Loop changes to either Southern Cross or Melbourne Central depending on the line and time of day.
The station takes its name from the nearby Flagstaff Hill, a significant site in Melbourne's early colonial history, and serves Melbourne's legal district. It is located under La Trobe and William streets, near the north-western corner of the CBD.
History
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The station was constructed by mining methods, and has four levels to a maximum depth of 32 metres (105 ft 0 in). The site was a geological "sandwich" of basalt in the arch area, Silurianmudstonebedrock in the lower half, and silt in the middle, which precluded the construction of lower and upper platforms as separately driven tunnels.[3]
Instead, the station platforms consist of two chambers linked by cross tunnels, each having two platforms on top of each other. The side of each chamber was made up of two drift tunnels, one at the top and one at the bottom. They were then linked by 228 vertically raise bored shafts, 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) in diameter and 3 metres (9 ft 10 in) apart. The shafts and drifts were then filled with concrete, and formed the side skeleton of the station chambers. The arch of each chamber was then constructed across the top of the two side walls, the material below the arch being excavated down to the bottom of the side walls, with temporary cross struts added between the raise bored columns, until the permanent elements were added. That innovative method resulted in a $1 million saving in construction costs.[4]
Flagstaff was the last station to open on the City Loop. Although trains had run through the station site since 24 January 1981, when the Loop began operating, Flagstaff did not open to passengers until 27 May 1985.[5][6]
Initially, the City Loop did not operate at all on Sundays. That was changed with the introduction of Sunday trading but, at the same time that the other two underground loop stations opened on Sundays, Flagstaff station had its Saturday services cancelled.[7] That was due to its proximity to business-related buildings such as the Commonwealth Law Complex, banks and major office buildings, which were usually closed on weekends and public holidays. After a number of residential developments had been built in the area, the station was scheduled to open on weekends from June 2015 with both the Labor and Liberal political parties having committed to that in the 2014 Victorian state election.[8] However, that was deferred until 1 January 2016 when it permanently opened to services on both Saturdays and Sundays.[9][10][9][10]
As of 2023-24, Flagstaff is the seventh-busiest station on Melbourne's metropolitan network, with 3.435 million passengers.[11][11][12]
Facilities
The station is located under the intersection of La Trobe and William streets and has two entrances – via lift or escalator south of La Trobe Street, and by stairs on the north. Flagstaff has three underground levels. The concourse level has a ticket office, ticket-operated gates, toilets, a news stand and a hot snack shop. Flagstaff's four platforms are on the two levels below, with each level having an island platform. The levels are linked by elevators, 14 escalators and stairs.[4] The four platforms serve a separate group of rail lines that leave the loop and radiate out into the city's suburbs.
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