Tram Shelter (former)

On 5 October 1940, the Australian Army established a training camp for the volunteers and conscripts drawn into the Australian Military Forces (AMF or militia) at Alonzo Sparke’s Paddock off Gympie Road at Chermside. Until the camp closed on 30 April 1946, the Army ran its own bus service down to the Lutwyche Cemetery tram stop so that troops, on leave, could catch a tram into the City. This bus service ran from the Murphy Road main gate down to Lutwyche Cemetery. This was an improvement on the situation during World War One when the Army had established a military camp in the same location. Then, horse-drawn cabs and later motor cabs took troops on leave down to the nearest tram terminus on Lutwyche Road near the Kedron Brook Bridge. 

During World War Two, if a soldier missed one of the Chermside Camp buses, he could always try to hitchhike along Gympie Road to the tram terminus. Local civilians also made use of the increased bus services provided for the Camp. The trams had their windows blacked out as an air raid precaution. The tram shelter at 418 Gympie Road was the end of the line for troops returning from leave. From there, they were collected by the Army bus and driven back to the Camp. The Commonwealth Government declared the end of the Second World War on 15 August 1945 as Victory over Japan (VJ) Day. It was a day of wild and jubilant celebrations in which the Lutwyche Cemetery tramline played a part. Soldiers and local residents decided to catch a tram into the City because roads were being closed due to the celebrations. The trams were packed with people going into the City where large crowds were wandering across or driving up and down the major streets.      

After World War Two, work recommenced on furthering the tram network around Brisbane. In 1947, the Route 62 tramline from Lutwyche Cemetery was extended and reached the Chermside shopping precinct on Gympie Road. As part of a suburban beautification scheme, Council constructed new flowerbeds along either side of the Gympie Road tram rails in 1956-57. The Brisbane City Council announced that it would cease running trams by March 1969. Gradually, tram services were wound down with the Kedron tram line closing on 2 December 1968. The final Brisbane tram ran on 13 April 1969.

 

Thereafter, the former tram shelter near the corner of Gympie Road and Kitchener Road was reutilised as a Brisbane City Council bus shelter. The steel tramlines were either removed or covered over along the Gympie Road tram route through Kedron. Eventually this timber shelter became the only surviving structure from the Lutwyche Cemetery tramline.

In April 2003, the Lutwyche Cemetery tram shelter was specifically identified in the Brisbane City Council’s Tram and Bus Shelters c.1915-1950s Conservation Management Plan produced by heritage architect Jinx Miles. This Plan provided a Condition Report on the Lutwyche Cemetery tram shelter and outlined the measures that needed to be undertaken to repair and restore the structure, as well as for its preservation and heritage protection. Appendix 3 contained a colour analysis for the Lutwyche Cemetery tram shelter and gave recommendations on a colour scheme for repainting this shelter.

On Page 44 of Council’s Tram and Bus Shelters c.1915-1950s Conservation Management Plan, it states:

The tram and bus shelters are valuable public assets. They are important as markers across the City identifying the earlier tramways and trolley bus network, forms of transport no longer in operation. The tram and bus shelters represent a valuable part of the Council’s history. They should remain in Council ownership. 

The protection of the significance of the tram and bus shelters should not be put aside to meet other more pragmatic or short-term concerns.

1. Brisbane City Council, Brisbane Images photographic collection

2. Brisbane City Council, Sewerage Plan No.1329, 1948

3. Clark, Howard & Keenan, David. Brisbane Tramways: the last decade, Transit Press, Sydney, 1977

4. Garry R Ford, ‘Brisbane Tramway Centenary: a Brief Chronology’, Royal Historical Society of Queensland Journal, Vol 12:2 (Sept, 1985)

5. Fraser, Hilaire, “Now and Then – The 40th Anniversary of the closure of the Brisbane tram system” in The Times –a journal of timetable history and analysis, March 2009, journal of the Australasian Time Table Collectors Inc.

6. Miles, Jinx, Tram and Bus Shelters c.1915-1950s Conservation Management Plan, (Brisbane: Brisbane City Council, 2003)

7. Shaw, Barry, (comp.). Stafford and Wilston-Grange Heritage Tour. Brisbane: Brisbane History Group, 1995

8. Steer, G.R. 1944, "Brisbane tramways: their history and development", RHSJ, vol.3, no.3. (May 1944)

9. Teague, David, The History of Chermside, (Brisbane: Colonial Press, 1976)

10. http://gallery.qrig.org/v/users/Mike+Quirk/Brisbane+Trams/?g2_page=2