Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops Site
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VOLUME 5 PART 1 MEMOIRS OF THE QUEENSLAND MUSEUM – CULTURE © The State of Queensland (Queensland Museum), 2011 PO Box 3300, South Brisbane 4101, Qld Australia Phone 61 7 3840 7555 Fax 61 7 3846 1226 www.qm.qld.gov.au National Library of Australia card number ISSN 1440-4788 NOTE Papers published in this volume and in all previous volumes of the Memoirs of the Queensland Museum may be reproduced for scientific research, individual study or other educational purposes. Properly acknowledged quotations may be made but queries regarding the republication of any papers should be addressed to the Editor in Chief. Copies of the journal can be purchased from the Queensland Museum Shop. A Guide to Authors is displayed at the Queensland Museum web site http://www.qm.qld.gov.au/About+Us/Publications/Memoirs+of+the+Queensland+Museum A Queensland Government Project Typeset at the Queensland Museum Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops site Robyn BUCHANAN Buchanan, R. 2011 Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops Site. Memoirs of the Queensland Museum – Culture 5(1): 31-52. Brisbane. ISSN 1440-4788 The decision to build the first railway in Queensland from Ipswich to the Darling Downs meant that railway workshops were required at Ipswich. The development of the Ipswich Railway Workshops site began with the original Ipwich Workshops site of 1864 which was adjacent to the Bremer River at North Ipswich. The first two major workshop buildings were iron and zinc structures imported from England in pre-fabricated form. Over the next few years, additional buildings including a brick store were constructed by local contractors. As the railway network expanded and the work increased this area became too small and a new site was selected a short distance to the north. There were two major periods of building activity on this site, in the 1880s and early 1900s. The first new buildings were brick. Most were placed in two rows separated by a traverser track, and form a remarkable industrial streetscape which still exists. A Power House completed in 1902 supplied electricity to the whole site. Timber administrative buildings, a brick Laboratory and a brick Tool and Gauge Shop were added later. The site ceased operation in the mid-1990s apart from work for QR’s heritage fleet of steam locomotives, and several of buildings now form The Workshops Rail Museum. Railway, railroad, workshop, locomotive, manufacture, museum, industrial, heritage, Ipswich, power house, laboratory. R. Buchanan Buchanan Heritage Serivces Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 2011 5(1) | 31 Robyn Buchanan IPSWICH OR BRISBANE? and Ipswich was already adequately served by river. Secondly, Ipswich had briefly A combination of geography and politics considered itself a potential capital, and determined the location of Queensland’s although it lost this battle, the town still first railway. had considerable influence and its residents When Queensland became a separate colony included important people such as Lands in 1859, Brisbane became its capital. The town and Works Minister Arthur Macalister. If was located a short distance from the mouth the railway started from Ipswich, the town of the Brisbane River, and was the chief port could retain its economically-important role of the colony. Up-river on the Bremer was as an inland port. Finally, the Government the busy inland port of Ipswich, and further already had preliminary surveys for this west was the productive Darling Downs. route, having spent a considerable amount to purchase them from the failed Moreton Bay Transport between Brisbane and Ipswich Tramway Company (G, 20 May 1863). was mainly by river. Bullock teams then hauled supplies from Ipswich to country A corollary of the decision to start the first properties, and returned loaded with wool railway from Ipswich was that workshops and other produce. The system broke would be required there. down in bad weather when roads became impassable and it was claimed that it was WORK BEGINS “no uncommon circumstance for 100 drays to be detained at one time waiting for the Irish engineer Abraham Fitzgibbon had possibility of travelling”. Even in good been engaged as a consultant on the weather, a long trip by bullock dray on poor proposed railway. In September 1863, he was roads was slow, difficult and expensive. A appointed Chief Engineer and for a period of better transport system was required and the about a year until October 1864, he was also solution appeared to be a railway (MBC, 1 Commissioner for Railways. To assist with January 1861).1 selecting staff and obtaining materials from overseas, a prominent British engineering The first initiative came from private firm, Charles Fox & Son was appointed as enterprise and in 1861, the Moreton Bay consulting engineers and agent in London. Tramway Company was formed to build a The contract for construction of the first horse-drawn railway from Ipswich to Dalby. section of line from Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp This project barely progressed beyond the (Grandchester) was awarded to British planning stage and it was realised that in a contractors Peto, Brassey & Betts. sparsely-populated colony like Queensland, The site selected for the workshops and only the government would have the capacity railway terminus was at North Ipswich. This to carry out such an expensive undertaking. was considered suitable because it was a flat In 1863, Queensland Premier Robert Herbert area directly across the river from the centre was able to obtain assurances of foreign of the town, and would allow easy delivery investment capital and in September that of materials by barge and paddle steamer. year, a decision was made to build a steam- From this starting point, it was proposed that operated railway. the railway would skirt the river and head Ipswich was chosen as the starting point north-west towards Grandchester. A further rather than the capital Brisbane for several benefit was that this route avoided a major reasons. Firstly, transport between Brisbane crossing of the Bremer River, although three 32 | Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 5(1) 2011 Evolution of the Ipswich Railway Workshops site FIG. 1. An A10 crossing the first Bremer River Bridge, a combined road-rail bridge pre-fabricated in England by Andrew Handyside & Co. Image courtesy TWRM/QR. small iron bridges were required in the first had lapsed. The Government had also set few kilometres – at Wide Gully, Mihi Creek money aside in budget estimates for a future and Ironpot Creek (Figure 1). road bridge and it now decided to combine these ideas. The station site was changed Ipswich people were not pleased with this to the southern side of the river and the arrangement; they wanted the railway railway contract was expanded to include a station to be on the south side of the river, combined road/rail bridge over the Bremer in the centre of the town. For some time, (G, 2 September 1862; QT, 5 July 1864). they had also been requesting a permanent road bridge across the Bremer to replace The first official construction activity took the existing structure, a pontoon “bridge” place on 25 February 1864 when Lady made of punts connected with timber Bowen, wife of the Governor Sir George decking. When the Government approved Bowen, carried out the ceremony of “turning the Moreton Bay Tramway two years earlier, the first sod” using a small silver spade and it had insisted that the company build a rail a cedar wheelbarrow. The workers also seem bridge across the Bremer but this project to have held their own unofficial ceremony Memoirs of the Queensland Museum | Culture 2011 5(1) | 33 Robyn Buchanan because in later years, the “nipper” of one three barge-loads of materials had landed of the gangs of navvies, Billy Mill, always on it, including some of the cylinders for the claimed that he had been given the honour piers of the Bremer Bridge. The locomotives of turning the first sod when work actually had not yet arrived, so wagons were started. 2 assembled and materials were hauled up the tramway by teams of horses (QSA 22051).4 At this time, the colony of Queensland could not supply the ironwork or machinery required for a railway and most of the THE FIRST LOCOMOTIVES AND WORKSHOP materials were imported from England. The BUILDINGS ARRIVE first four locomotives were built at Avonside Works at Bristol in England, tested there, and The railway construction was a source of dis-assembled for transport to Queensland. great interest to the small boys of the town. The first passenger carriages were also Unwilling to spend money on the ferry, imported, built with teak bodies on iron they often stripped off their clothes, tied frames. Other early orders included four them in a bundle on their heads and swam iron bridges, two large workshop buildings the river to watch the men at work. There and the stations for Ipswich, Laidley and was even greater interest in January 1865 Toowoomba.3 when the first locomotives arrived and were assembled and tested on the Workshops site. While the materials were being produced in The first one in steam was announced by England, site works commenced in Ipswich. blasts on its whistle and caused a sensation. The ironbark piers for the three smaller People rushed across the pontoon bridge bridges were built, ready for the arrival of and were invited to clamber on board as the the iron trusses. For the main Bremer Bridge, locomotive made a slow progress between a coffer dam was built in the river and timber Wide Gully Bridge and the wharf (QT, 18 formwork was constructed ready for the iron March 1910; BC, 13 January 1865). cylinders.