Summary：The abandoned railway stations in their heyday used to be packed with passengers carrying luggage and people bidd...

The abandoned railway stations in their heyday used to be packed with passengers carrying luggage and people bidding farewell to each other but now are forgotten by time.

The exhibition "The Ghosts of Stations Past" in South Australia's capital Adelaide featuring more than 20 photos and 100 video footage tells the history of ups and downs of rail services and remembers the former railway stations scattered along with the railway network in the state.

The exhibition in the National Railway Museum kicked off on Saturday and continues until May 31.

"We want to demonstrate to the public what the old stations looked like, where they were, and what happened to them," said Emily Collins, the curator of the exhibition.

"There were 111 photos in the video and 21 on the wall, representing stations on different lines in the full South Australia railway network." The stations which do not exist anymore display changes in Australia.

Talking about reasons for disappearing, Collins told Xinhua "all the cases are different."

"In many cases, they served small towns, and the towns didn't survive, whether due to difficulties in growing crops or the climate. And there was not enough justification to keep railway operating."

One example she mentioned was the Radium Hill Station at the side of the first uranium mine in South Australia. Pointing to a black-and-white picture shows what used to be a platform, she said "it was opened to serve the first uranium mine in Australia. When the mine closed down, the station closed down as well and no one lived there anymore. People moved away."

Another photo she likes was the Barinia Railway Station in which the tracks were hidden in tall grass. Barinia means "star" in the aboriginal language.

The station opened freight trains in 1920, and many stations were replaced by bus services in 1954, which was considered more efficient in the hilly terrain. The station was closed after completing the delivery of the last carriage of wheat in 1965.

According to Bob Sampson, executive officer of the National Railway Museum, before the motor vehicles and trucks railroad became important, the number of railways in Australia began to decrease.

Privatization is another reason. "Private companies would look at the business and when they think they didn't make money from this line and that line, they would simply close them down," he said.

Sampson said the museum has a history of 50 years and its exhibits represent the entire history of Australian railway.

"We have nearly 50,000 visitors to the museum a year, and China represents about one-third of the total international visitors," he said.