Shelter Design Trams were a feature of Brisbane streets from 1885 until 1969. From the 1920s to the 1950s The Brisbane Tramway Trust and then the Brisbane City Council erected a number of timber waiting shelter sheds along the tram/bus routes. Most shelters were constructed by Brisbane City Council in response to petitioning by community groups or progress associations. A survey of usage was undertaken by BCC to determine the most viable locations for the shelters. Waiting sheds promoted the use of the tram/bus system by providing a comfortable waiting area with some protection from the elements. Some shelters were large and purpose-built for the site but most were free-standing shelters constructed to standard designs. In this survey three standard shelter types used during this period were identified – P.1008 Standard Waiting Shelter (hipped roof pavilion shelter); Standard Small Type Tramway Shelter Shed No. 2512 (skillion roof shelter); and the gable roof shelter. Only drawings for the P.1008 and No. 2512 types were located during this study.
The gable roof shelter design may have been from a shelter constructed earlier in the 20th century during the time The Brisbane Tramway Company owned and operated the tramway network. The shelter in Chatsworth Road near the corner with Upper Cornwall Street was constructed in 1915 to shelter Greenslopes tram patrons. It had points for lights that the tram drivers would turn on at sunset and off when the last tram left. The P.1008 drawings were drawn up by the Brisbane City Council Department of Works, Planning and Building Branch and signed by City Architect F.G. Costello in 1946. The Standard Small Type Shelter No. 2512 was drawn up by the Transport Department of the Planning and Building Branch and signed by City Architect F.G. Costello in 1945. The P.1008 type shelter closely resembles the shelters constructed by the Brisbane Tramway Trust in the 1920s and 1930s. No drawings for these earlier shelters have been located and this study has been unable to confirm that the 1946 drawings were based on these earlier shelters but the physical evidence suggests that this is the case. The designs for the shelters are uncharacteristic of work designed by Costello which may indicate that the shelter designs are continuing an earlier idiom.
Tramway history:
In 1884 a private company, the Metropolitan Tramway and Investment Company, laid Brisbane’s first tram tracks along approximately 10.5 kilometres from Woolloongabba to Breakfast Creek, with branches to the Exhibition Building and New Farm. The company began the operation of a horse-drawn passenger tram system in 1885 with the trams running on rails from the North Quay to the Exhibition Building and Breakfast Creek and later extending the routes to Bulimba Ferry, New Farm, Logan Road and West End.
A power station to supply current to electric trams was constructed in Countess Street in 1897 and The Brisbane Tramways Company introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane that year after purchasing the early horse car system, converting it to electric operation and expanding and extending the routes. Brisbane’s tramway system experienced rapid expansion in response to the growth in the City’s population. From a population of 101,554 in 1891 Brisbane had expanded to a population of 139,480 in 1911, which then doubled to 209,168 by 1921. The number of cars in operation increased from 20 in 1897 to 172 in 1916. At the conclusion of the First World War there was general support for the notion that the tramway system be owned and operated by a public authority rather than a private company. In 1922, the Brisbane Tramway Trust was inaugurated by an Act of Parliament and the Trust assumed ownership and control of the tramways in January 1923. The tramway system had failed to keep pace with the expansion of Brisbane so the Trust faced a considerable backlog of work. It undertook the construction of repair workshops and car depots, laying of additional tracks, purchase of additional cars and the introduction of remote control of points at busy intersections. Innovations introduced by the Trust included the construction of passenger waiting shelter sheds, advertising in trams and a suggestions board scheme. The 1920s and 1930s was a period of tramways expansion following the Brisbane City Council acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust in 1925. The Council continued with the upgrading and extension of the system. During the first half of the 20th century public transport was important in Brisbane and remained the principal form of transport for most residents. By the 1950s Brisbane had one of the highest levels of public transport usage in Australia. The tram system was the principal form of public transport in Brisbane until the 1960s. It is thought that the hipped roof and skillion roof shelters identified in this study were constructed between the 1920s and 1950s by the Brisbane Tramway Trust and then by Brisbane City Council. Most of the routes on which these shelters have been identified were constructed during this period. Further research is required to establish construction dates for the gable roof shelters. As the tram routes to Windsor and Coorparoo were established in 1914 and 1915, the shelter construction post dates this. The construction of the hipped roof waiting shelter in Merthyr Road, New Farm was approved by the Trust in 1924 and probably constructed in 1925.
In 1924 the Brisbane Tramway Trust extended the tram service to Ashgrove, demonstrating a confidence in the future of the suburb. The release of 855 allotments in the Glenlyon Gardens estate in 1924 was the catalyst for the development of Ashgrove as a residential suburb. It is thought that the waiting shelters along Waterworks Road (Ithaca Bridge, Oleander Drive and Stewart Place) were constructed at sometime between the mid-1920s and the 1940s. The Rosalie line opened along Elizabeth Street, Rosalie in 1904 and was extended in 1930 to Rainworth, terminating in Boundary Road adjacent to Rainworth Primary School. The shelters on Boundary Road were built after this 1930 extension of the line. Between 1937 and 1939 the tramline extended to Bardon and the Simpsons Road shelter was built some time after this. From 1940 the Brisbane City Council trialed the use of buses with diesel engines in areas not serviced by trams. In 1940 a diesel bus service ran from Kelvin Grove through Herston and along Butterfield Street to the City. The shelter on Butterfield Street remains as evidence of the diesel bus service which became the backbone of Brisbane City Council public transport after the closure of the tramway system in 1969.
Following the Second World War, Brisbane experienced a housing boom which encouraged the Council to extend its electric tramway network. At this time the Monday to Friday the morning peak services had 246 tram cars operating and 296 cars were required to meet the evening peak traffic. During the day each route was serviced by a tram every ten minutes. However from the 1950s various factors converged to influence a decline in the patronage of the tram system. An increasing reliance on the private motor car reduced the number of tram passengers and the growth of the Brisbane City Council’s bus fleet gradually outstripped that of the tram system. Urban sprawl saw more and more families move to outer suburbs not connected to the tram system, and a lack of investment in the technological development of trams compared with increasing expenditure on diesel buses contributed to the conversion of Brisbane’s public transport system from trams to buses. In 1962 the Paddington tram depot was burned to the ground with the loss of 65 trams (20% of the fleet). In 1965 the Wilbur Smith Plan, a report on the future transport and traffic requirements of Brisbane, recommended the closure of the tramway system and a conversion to a bus program. As a result of all these various influences and events, the tram system in Brisbane was discontinued in 1969. The tram waiting shelters remain, providing evidence of a mode of transport no longer in use.
Source: Brisbane City Council Heritage Register.
