Bagdad

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Type : Station
Line : Apsley Branch
Distance from Brighton Junction : 010.681km
Opened : 22 April 1891 as Black Brush Road, renamed Mangalore 1901
Closed : 29 September 1947 (formal)
Status : Closed
Name meaning : The town was named by the explorer Hugh Germain, a private in the Royal Marines. He was said by James Backhouse in his book "A Narrative of a Visit to the Australian Colonies", published in 1901, to carry two books in his saddlebags while traveling: the Bible and the Arabian Nights, which he used as inspiration when he named places.
Notes : Bagdad was located at 6 miles and 51 chains from Brighton (10.681km), it featured a Down side platform with a timber station building similar to the one at Pontville. Bagdad was a staff station until 1945 (there were no signals on the line at that stage).
The station was located approximately where Bagdad Store and Post Office are now sited.
As built, there was a short Up side loop that serviced a goods shed, the loop was extended in 1919 to service a substantial packing shed for the Bagdad Valley Fruitgrowers Co-operative (marked as "Apple Shed") and in 1922 a further extension was added at the Up end of the yard. Two crossovers also existed in the yard.
In the early part of the 20th century the ticket office did double service as the local Post Office and Telegraph Office (in a room no bigger than 12' x 14'); the sorting pigeon holes were rat infested and it wasn't unusual for letters to be carried off by the rodents that occupied the building. The building also had the town's only public telephone and waits up to half an hour to use it were not unusual. The dual role of Post Master/Station Master was still causing problems as late as August 1923 when local residents complained that between 5pm and 6pm (when the SM was off duty having his tea) that there was no-one available to facilitate use of the public phone. A meeting was called, and the Warden (Mr John Swan) responded that if the community could find between £400 and £500 per year then a new Post Office could be constructed, and the burden be taken off the railways to provide staff and facilities. 
In 1910 a correspondent to The Mercury noted that facilities at the station were sub-par with access to the goods shed requiring horses and carts to be backed over the rails which had caused damage to cart axles and injuries to horses; unloading of heavy equipment required a team of locals to pitch in and help.
Bagdad was, for most of the lifetime of the line, the busiest station – it handled more goods traffic than any other locality and during the apricot harvesting season it saw extra goods trains. As late as July 1944 The Mercury reported that the local branch of the Primary Producers Union petitioned Parliament for improved facilities at the yard, unfortunately there's no mention of the outcome beyond the Minister (Culley) stating that he would "investigate".
1926 saw the removal of the permanent Station Master – during the 1920s traffic had declined and the Railway Commissioner could not justify the cost of employing a full time SM; this caused problems with the loading and unloading of goods at the station and after three months the decision was reversed.
1944 was a watershed year for the station and somewhat of a low point, drought had seen fruit harvests collapse over the prior three years and once again the Railway Commissioner decided that the cost of retaining staff could not be borne, and that management of the station would be passed over to the Post Office – locals felt this would be an issue as railway business could not be transacted by the Post Office staff and it was projected that around 50,000 to 60,000 cases of fruit would need to be sent from the station during the following year without any sort of assistance. The Commissioner stated that total revenue at the station in the preceding 12 months was £35/15/4 against costs of around £86. Freight tonnage for 1943-4 had collapsed to 384 tons outward and only 29 tons inward. The problem was compounded by more freight moving to the faster and cheaper road service (also run by the government) – although this too was problematic as fruit was transported to Brighton and often left in the open pending pick up by a through goods train. By September of that year the staffing issue had still not been resolved and a deputation was made to the Minister – this appears to have been ignored.
By 1947 Bagdad loop had both intermediate crossovers removed with the station having had its staff withdrawn on 16/2/1945.

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Bagdad station, 1930-35 (National Archives of Australia)

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Bagdad Store and Post Office - site of the one-time station (Google)