Railway footbridge

North of Nudgee Station, a long, straight stretch of rail line was laid and given the nickname of ‘the Boondall Speedway’. At the end of this straight stretch of line and just before the railway crossed over Cabbage Tree Creek, a railway stop was created and named after the creek. The location of the Cabbage Tree Creek railway bridge determined the siting of the uncovered platform that was placed on the southern side of the creek to serve the farming community of Boondall. The first train to Sandgate ran past this spot on 11 May 1882. In 1884, the Cabbage Tree station’s first building, a passenger shelter shed, was constructed with street access to nearby Sandgate Road. The contract for this building was awarded to Henry Pears on 23 October 1884.

In 1891, the Catholic Church established St. Joseph’s Nudgee Boys’ College, to be run by the Christian Brothers, at Sandgate Road, Boondall south of the station. The Christian Brothers cleared a walking track leading from Nudgee College to the railway station. By 1911, such was the number of its students and parents that were using the railway station that Brother McGee pushed for a name change to the station. McGee complained that many visitors travelling to his school had mistakenly alighted at Nudgee Station in the belief that this station serviced Nudgee Boys’ College. He advocated that Cabbage Tree Station be renamed Nudgee College Station and pursued the matter through the local state member of parliament Mr. T. Bridges MLA. 

The General Traffic Manager of the Queensland Department of Railways pointed out that the confusion would continue, as there was both an existing Nudgee Station and a College Station. The latter served the Agricultural College at Gatton. But the politicians overruled him and the railway station at Boondall had its name changed to Nudgee College Station on 7 April 1911. But this change was unpopular with the local community. Angry Boondall residents, mostly farmers and some of who were German Lutheran migrants, took-up a petition, to oppose the name change. Within a few months of April 1911, 70 signatures appeared on this petition that was sent to the Department of Railways. Their major complaint was that as the railway carried their mail, it was going astray and mistakenly being delivered to either Nudgee or College Stations. 

It took another 12 years before the issue was resolved. In December 1923, the name Boondall, which means crooked creek, was adopted for the railway station. By then the first housing development College Estate (1915) had created a small village clustered around the station and the the Nudgee College Progress Association had been formed.  During the 1920s, due to healthy state finances and an increasing population, pedestrian overpass footbridges were built by the Department of Railways at many Brisbane suburban stations. Car ownership was low and would not become widespread in the Brisbane population until the development of the Australian car industry after World War Two. So public transport, in particular the railway was the major people mover for Brisbane residents wishing to access the rural, outer suburbs.  

In 1919, Mrs. Mary Pashley became the Station Mistress. She was assisted by her daughter Grace. Eventually, Grace took over this position from her mother and Grace Pashley, at the time of her retirement in 1969, had become the longest serving Station Mistress in Queensland.  

In 1986, Boondall Station was redeveloped. This redevelopment coincided with the opening in that year of the Boondall Sports and Entertainment Complex that became Brisbane’s premiere live music concert venue and basketball stadium. At the same time, a second station was constructed in Boondall, closer to Nudgee Boys College and opened on 2 October 1986. This new stop along the Sandgate Line was named Boondall Station and the existing station in Peacock Street was renamed North Boondall Station. The old nineteenth century former Cabbage Tree Station building and its waiting shed were relocated to Railway Museum at Cabanda on the Marburg railway. It was replaced with a modern building that serviced new twin platforms. Only the timber, pedestrian overpass footbridge was retained as it allowed passengers to cross from one platform to the other, though it may have been moved from its location at the end of Peacock Street to its present location at the end of Holroyd Street. 

A total of 19 railway stations have been built along the Sandgate/Shorncliffe rail line since it opened in 1891. Four stations (Normanby, Bowen Park, Mayne, Thorroldtown) have completely disappeared. Many of the remaining stations have been completely or partially been redeveloped such that they have lost their interwar railway footbridges. Only Banyo, Northgate and North Boondall stations retain these structures. Northgate Station only has one of its original set of two railway footbridges. The former Boondall Station railway footbridge serves as a reminder of the suburb’s first railway station. The footbridge has served the Boondall community for approximately 90 years.

1. Brisbane City Council, aerial photographs 1946 & 2009

2. Bow, Barbara, Welcome to Boondall, (Sandgate: Sandgate & Districts Historical Society, 1995)

3. Kerr, J 1988, Brunswick Street, Bowen Hills and Beyond: the Railways of the Northern suburbs of Brisbane, Australian Railway Historical Society, Brisbane