In the boisterous bazaar of Brunswick’s barrooms, one grand old boozer refuses to die.
The Hotel Railway — once the “Railway Club Hotel,” now reborn with a flash new paint job and comedian Mick Molloy’s name on the lease — has re-emerged from renovation. And when the plaster dust settled in 2022, it revealed something miraculous: a ghost sign from a century ago, proudly promising “First Class Accommodation.”
A bold claim, considering the last time the place made headlines, two of its managers were caught selling cocaine and meth to an undercover cop in a sting operation so obvious it felt like a bad episode of Underbelly. The cops queued up behind wired revellers. Gear was handed over like showbags at a school fête.
But the Railway has always been a magnet for madness.
Built around 1889, this architectural behemoth was one of a dozen grand hotels springing up in Brunswick during the boom, ready to serve the sweat-soaked travellers riding in from country Victoria and New South Wales. Robert Fullerton Newton started it all, only to promptly pass ownership to his wife Helena.
It didn’t help. In 1902, burglar William Watson helped himself to cash, cigars, and enough spirits to summon the dead. Two years later, a thief snuck upstairs and relieved guests of their jewellery, wallets, and faith in humanity. Even the staff got in on the action: Maggie Murphy, a domestic servant with a light touch and no shame, pinched a ring from her boss and made off like a bandit.
Then came William Newcombe — a man whose legacy can be summed up in one phrase: watered-down rum. Trying to cut costs, he diluted the good stuff and was caught faster than a streaker at the MCG. He took out an ad in The Age practically begging for boarders: “Newly renovated rooms — cheap. Surely someone wants accommodation?” They didn’t. A month later, he was flogging the place off like a dodgy microwave.
Over the decades, the joint was run by a parade of formidable women — Helena Newton, Nellie Hornby, Irene O’Brien, Hannah O’Gorman — each one juggling guests, gins, and ghosts, the latter thanks to the hotel’s basement morgue, which doubled as a storage area for cadavers and kegs. Talk about a cold one.
By the mid-2010s, the Railway had morphed into a thumping nightclub. The drugs flowed, the cops followed, and in 2016 the curtain fell with a police raid worthy of a Tarantino climax. After that? Darkness. Squatters moved in. Vandals left their mark. Copper wiring vanished. The place was more post-apocalyptic set piece than functioning hotel.
But now the beast breathes again, reopened in 2022, scrubbed clean and gleaming like a prize pig at the Royal Show. And that ghost sign — bold, battered, and bafflingly optimistic — is back in the sun, calling out to Brunswick barflies and thirsty travellers.
It may say “First Class Accommodation,” but we all know better. The Hotel Railway may have had a facelift, but at its heart it’s a Brunswick baptism by beer and bad decisions.
And it wouldn’t have it any other way.
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