Exhibition captures the changing face of the Upfield line
Writer and photographer combine skills to record places and faces along railway line
Brunswick Voice
Friday, March 20, 2026
The future of the Phoenix Street railway bridge is uncertain once the level crossing project begins. Photo: Nicholas Walton-Healey
Brunswick Voice
Friday, March 20, 2026
THE people and places of the Upfield line are set to feature in a new exhibition at the Brunswick Neighbourhood House.
Consisting of words by local writer and resident Kevin Brophy, and stunning portrait and landscape photographs by Nicholas Walton-Healey, The Line Through Brunswick celebrates everyday moments, shared journeys and the character of the neighbourhoods connected by the line.
This exhibition is the culmination of a three-year process. Prompted by the announcement that the Brunswick stretch of the line would be absorbed into the existing northern Skyrail, their project involved the recording of surfaces, crossing gates, trees and orchards, huts, signals, graffiti and other oddities.
Supported by a grant from Merri-Bek Council, it quickly extended to include conversations with dozens of people living, working or commuting along the line.
The empty railway gatekeeper’s hut at the Brunswick Road level crossing on the Upfield line holds a special place in the heart of Roula Rozakeas.
For three decades until 1995, her father Konstantinos (Kon) Rozakeas spent every working day inside the small weatherboard building, manually lowering and raising the gates every time a train was due to pass.
Before automated signals and gates were installed, all of Melbourne’s railway crossings had similar huts.
Roula revisited her father’s old workplace last year for a special photo shoot with Nicholas Walton-Healey as part of The Line Through Brunswick project.
“I think of the line as our veins and the gates as the valves,” says Roula. “If they were not functioning, there was trouble.
“My father loved his job. He wanted to keep working when they closed the manual gates in the late-1990s.
“His last day was sad. He put his alarm clock on the railway line at the end of his shift.”
At some stage in the next few years, the Upfield line will be replaced with an elevated railway, eliminating any need for level crossings.
The Level Crossing Removal Project says the gatehouses and also Jewell and Brunswick railway stations will remain because of their heritage value.
Photos: Nicholas Walton-Healey
The empty railway gatekeeper’s hut at the Brunswick Road level crossing on the Upfield line holds a special place in the heart of Roula Rozakeas.
For three decades until 1995, her father Konstantinos (Kon) Rozakeas spent every working day inside the small weatherboard building, manually lowering and raising the gates every time a train was due to pass.
Before automated signals and gates were installed, all of Melbourne’s railway crossings had similar huts.
Roula revisited her father’s old workplace last year for a special photo shoot with Nicholas Walton-Healey as part of The Line Through Brunswick project.
“I think of the line as our veins and the gates as the valves,” says Roula. “If they were not functioning, there was trouble.
“My father loved his job. He wanted to keep working when they closed the manual gates in the late-1990s.
“His last day was sad. He put his alarm clock on the railway line at the end of his shift.”
At some stage in the next few years, the Upfield line will be replaced with an elevated railway, eliminating any need for level crossings.
The Level Crossing Removal Project says the gatehouses and also Jewell and Brunswick railway stations will remain because of their heritage value.
Photos: Nicholas Walton-Healey
“This project brought together my love of working with place, people, words and photos in a new and exciting way for me,” says Walton-Healey.
“I hope the audience will recognise some of their own experiences of the line in the exhibition.”
While leading Brophy and Walton-Healey all the way to the Upfield terminus, the expeditions undertaken by the two friends were invariably shaped by an overriding desire to capture for the future the long-made, make-do spirit of this narrow, densely populated urban corridor.
“I’m on the Upfield bike path every day,” says Brophy.
“It’s my access to life in Brunswick, and a source of so many stories, from the touchingly beautiful to the touchingly ugly.”
John Werrett, Brunswick West resident and photographer, pictured at the Barkly Street crossing.
“The State Government planned to close the Upfield Line during the 1990s,” he says.
“I joined in with the group that had assembled to try and save it.
“I photographed gatekeepers, station masters, and some of the people who lived along the line.”
Photo: Nicholas Walton-Healey
John Werrett, Brunswick West resident and photographer, pictured at the Barkly Street crossing.
“The State Government planned to close the Upfield Line during the 1990s,” he says. “I joined in with the group that had assembled to try and save it.
“I photographed gatekeepers, station masters, and some of the people who lived along the line.”
Photo: Nicholas Walton-Healey
Through their considered curation, the resultant works show how the line plaits along its length the lives of artists, gardeners, orchardists, arborists, parkland protectors, bicycle mechanics, bar and café owners, walkers, commuters and cyclists — everywhere showing the marks of its history.
More than a commuter rail and bicycle route that simultaneously divides and links the suburb, the line is portrayed as fuzzy and organic, concentrating the creativity of people at home, at work, in transit and at leisure.
In these ways, the exhibition commits to memory a living portrait of the line and its community.
Above: graffiti on a section of the Skyrail over Moreland Road.Right: detail on the Union Street signal box. Photos: Nicholas Walton-Healey
Above: graffiti on a section of the Skyrail over Moreland Road. Below: detail on the Union Street signal box. Photos: Nicholas Walton-Healey
The Line Through Brunswick opens at the Brunswick Neighbourhood House on April 17 until May 19. Tickets for the launch are free and can be booked here.
An exhibition talk between Walton-Healey and Elisabeth Jackson, the president of the Brunswick Community History Group, is scheduled for 1.30pm on Saturday, May 2.
Read more:
Project wants stories from Brunswick residents.
Project wants stories from Brunswick residents.
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