Aramac Tramway Museum

About

Aramac Tramway Museum is a heritage-listed former tramway station and now a museum at Boundary Street, Aramac, Barcaldine Region, Queensland, Australia. It was built from 1912 to 1913. It is also known as Aramac Tramway Station. It was added to the Queensland Heritage Register on 26 November 1999.

The Aramac Tramway Museum is located within the Aramac Tramway Station. The Aramac Tramway was constructed in 1912–1913, funded by the Aramac Shire Council. It closed on 31 December 1975.

When Queensland separated from New South Wales in 1859, the new Queensland Government was quick to throw open land for grazing, and a great wave of pastoral settlement swept across western and northern Queensland in the early 1860s.

The establishment of towns in the west soon followed, for example Tambo, Blackall and Aramac which developed as commercial centres to service the pastoral industry. Aramac Town Reserve was gazetted on 26 June 1869 and the first businesses were established in the town that same year. On 6 April 1880, local government commenced when the Aramac Divisional Board, established under the Divisional Boards Act 1879, held its first meeting in the Court House.

Nineteenth century Queensland development was further influenced by the pattern of building railway lines west into the hinterlands from the major ports, first Main Line railway from near Brisbane in 1865, then the Central Western railway line from Rockhampton in 1867 and the Great Northern Railway from Townsville in 1880. The Central Western Line reached Barcaldine in 1886 and was extended to Longreach in 1892. These towns were founded when the railway arrived, and had the immediate effect of taking business away from the nearby well-established towns of Aramac and Blackall.

Throughout Australia, the early twentieth century heralded a time of rapid railway expansion, and competition between towns for services was fierce. Aramac had first asked for a railway extension in 1896, without success. Ten years later, in 1906, a deputation of Aramac Councillors visited the Premier, William Kidston, seeking his support for the railway. It also failed. Despite these disappointing responses, the Aramac Shire Council (the successor to the Aramac Divisional Board) persevered with their plans. In 1908 Council asked the Queensland Treasury for a special loan of £ 1,375 to finance a survey of the route of the proposed line. With some reservation from the Railways Department, the Council was granted its survey loan, and employed George Phillips to peg out the route from Aramac to Barcaldine. When the survey was completed, Council moved in March 1906 to borrow £ 66,500 to build the tramway. The Railways Department responded by commissioning two reports on the best commercial link between the Central Western and Great Northern lines. The second of these recommended the shortest and least expensive method of connecting the lines was by the Longreach to Winton route, and the Railways Commissioner decided in favour of this route.

Although it was to be another eighteen years before the Longreach-Winton line opened, the Aramac Shire Council committed itself to the courageous decision to construct a tramway for which the Council would be financially responsible. In March 1911, Treasury approval was given for a loan to Aramac Shire Council to build the Barcaldine-Aramac tramway. George Phillips was appointed Engineer in charge of construction.

Another question for Council was exactly where the tramway station was to be located. In June 1911 Council fixed the station site "at the Eastern End of Gordon Street about 100 yards before the bore drain". That point was to become the end of the track, where the locomotive shed was built; the station building was actually built about 200 metres (660 ft) to the south, near the end of McWhannell Street.

Construction from the Central Western Line commenced at Lagoon Creek, 1 mile (1.6 km) west of the Barcaldine railway station, on 14 February 1912. The construction standard that Phillips adopted was the minimum acceptable to the Queensland Railways Commissioner; although the tramway belonged to the Council, it needed to conform to Queensland Railways specifications because government rolling stock would be using it. The line was to be 3 ft 6 in gauge, with very light 42-pound (19 kg) Moss Bay rails. For most of its length, the line had no ballast, with the sleepers simply laid on levelled earth. This was a technique Phillips had pioneered on the Croydon - Normanton railway (now the Gulflander ), and while it was frowned on by most railway engineers, it was satisfactory under light loads on level going. As most of the route extended over open grassed plains, simply following the gentle rise and fall of the ground, there was very little earthwork to do. There were only about 12 bends on the line, one cutting and no embankments, and 24 wooden trestle bridges, most of them over small creeks. Because the route ran through grazing country, the whole line was stock-fenced.

Despite this cheap and simple construction, there were to be long delays in building the line. Only 6 miles (9.7 km) of line had been laid by April 1912. Unusually heavy rain on the blacksoil plains held up progress, and the workers struck for higher pay. The late delivery of sleepers was a constant problem throughout the project. In August the line reached the halfway point, and on 12 September the 21 miles (34 km) of track to Mildura siding were officially opened to traffic. These delays meant that construction expenses had been heavier than Phillip's estimates, and in November the money ran out. Council was forced to go to the Queensland Treasury for another loan of £ 10,000 to complete the work. The total cost of the completed tramway was £ 88,983, one third more than Phillips' estimate.

By May 1913 the bridges over Aramac Creek were being built, and the tramway was approaching town. Final preparations were underway as the construction phase neared completion. The station buildings were being built by O'Brien and Company, and a contract was signed with Blair Athol Coal Company for the supply of coal. Phillips was to be kept on as Supervising Engineer after the line opened. The first locomotive to work the line was already in use during the construction work. It was an elderly Avonside Engine Company B12, built in 1877, which had spent many years in Queensland Railways service as Engine No 31 before being purchased by Aramac Shire Council to become Aramac Tramway Engine No 1.

The official opening of the tramway took place on 2 July 1913. It was expected that the work would be completed by then, but unseasonal rain had again delayed construction, so the line was still a few hundred metres short of its objective. As the date had been chosen to coincide with the festivities of the annual race meeting, the opening went ahead regardless. The ceremony was held at the end of the completed line, which at that time was between the two channels of Aramac. The Honourable Walter Paget, Minister for Railways, performed the opening.

Despite the official opening, there were still two more months of construction work ahead. Building the 41-mile (66 km) line took 19 months in all, and it was not until September 1913 that the bridge over Aramac Creek was completed, and the first train steamed into Aramac Tramway Station.

The station at the Aramac terminus of the line was the place where passengers and goods from all over the district converged on departing trains, and dispersed from arriving ones. The activities at the tramway terminus were spread out over a distance of about 400 metres (1,300 ft) running up the eastern side of the town, with the three east–west streets of the town grid all terminating at the tramway yards.

Trains arriving in Aramac crossed the bridges over the creek channels and steamed up the grade into the station. The main line led directly into the passenger station, and the train stopped under a large timber-framed corrugated iron canopy covering the line, an unusual and prominent building. The station master's office, ticket office and waiting rooms were in the weatherboard station building alongside the canopy, and when a train was due a row of taxicabs stood waiting in the street outside. Ahead of the train, built over the end of the main line, was the locomotive shed, and near it were the coal stage and the station master's residence.

When passengers had alighted, the train was reversed onto a side line which led to the goods shed and the wool loading platform, back in the direction of Aramac Creek. Here goods and parcels were unloaded into the shed which still stands, and a row of trucks and wagons lined up on the other side of the concrete platform to collect merchandise for the town's businesses. The Aramac yard had four tracks for shunting, and a triangle running east from the main line for turning the locomotives. That line also led to the sheep and cattle loading ramps and yards, east of the station.

Immediately it opened, the tramway had a beneficial impact on the economy of Aramac. Wool, the staple product of the district, was carried to market faster and more efficiently. From places all over the shire, goods, passengers and business which had once gone by road to the government railway stations at Longreach, Barcaldine or Jericho now all converged on the town of Aramac. The whole town took on an air of bustle and excitement with the arrival of every train, and all its businesses benefited. The tramway offered four regular passenger services each week, with additional trains for goods and livestock as required. In 1915, the second full year of operation, the tramway carried over 4,000 long tons (4,100 t) of wool and 4,000 long tons (4,100 t) of general goods, over 250,000 sheep and nearly 7000 passengers.

The graziers and shopkeepers who made up the Aramac Shire Council found themselves in the unfamiliar business of running a railway, and it was to form a prominent part of their agenda for the next 62 years. The tramway was a financial success, but only marginally so; even in the busy year of 1915, total revenue was only 8% greater than expenditure. Running expenses had to be watched very closely, and many Council meetings became largely concerned with tramway management issues such as timetables, claims for delayed goods, locomotive maintenance, mail contracts and coal purchases.

Experience showed that the old Engine No 1 was not sufficiently powerful to operate the line, and in November 1914 Council resolved to call tenders for a second larger B15 steam locomotive. Engine No 113 was leased from Queensland Railways for a time, but proved unsatisfactory and was returned to State service. Then in late 1915 Council bought B15 class engine No 308 second-hand from the Railways Department for £ 2002. It had been built by Walkers Limited at Maryborough in 1897, and now became Aramac Engine No 2. The older engine remained in service for light work until it was scrapped in 1939. The engine shed was lengthened to take the second engine in 1915, and the bridges on the line were strengthened to take the extra weight.

Somewhat surprisingly, a Council meeting in November 1915 passed the motion offering the tramway to the Queensland Government and that the Minister for Railways now be written to asking the Government to take it over as a government line. This may be the first indication that Council had doubts about the future viability of the tramway, or it may simply have been part of the plan from the beginning. There is no record that any reply was ever received from the Queensland Government.