1 September 2009

When the railways ran all the way to Civic

| johnboy
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Our Government is currently eyeing up tearing up the tracks and flogging off all the land along the lucrative and attractive rail corridor to Kingston. This is particularly ironic as a large part of the value of that land is the rail corridor.

But for a sense of perspective Aussielyn has sent in these historic photos from when the trains ran all the way to Civic.

The first is Railway Bridge destroyed by the 1922 flood of the Molonglo River – thanks to the National Library of Australia.

Here’s another look at that damage:


(Civic railway siding image thanks to ACT Rail Museum, Kingston. he Civic siding was left as an eyesore to be demolished, justifying inaction. NCDC Architects Board in the 1950s put the nail in the coffin of civic rail corridor because of hydraulics & finance.)

Aussielyn asked me to include the following to get everyone thinking:

    Yass Canberra Railway

      Check first schedule of the Seat of Government Acceptance Act 1909 still current.

      I don’t think it is superceded by the 1922 ACT, but I am no lawyer!

      “9. In the event of the Commonwealth constructing a railway within the Territory to its northern boundary, the State shall construct a railway from a point near Yass on the Great Southern Railway to join with the said railway,
      and the Commonwealth and the State shall grant to each other such reciprocal running rights as may be agreed upon, or as in default of agreement may be determined by arbitration, over such portions of that railway as are owned by each.”

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I think it would be wonderful, even having trams to go into Civic, and the airport, this is the main problem here in Canberra, either you park your car at the airport, railway station, or get some other way to get there, and taxis are too expensive, it just doesn’t make sense, every other city have regular transport to rail and airports.

The biggest problem with rail is the perception (government) that rail must pay for itself. It never has and never will because of economies of scale. Companies that run trains (usually government organisations but not always) are expected to make money and also help fund the infrastructure and upkeep of stations, perway, signals, tunnels, bridges, etc. which cannot be achieved with such cheap rail fares that exist in this country. It is a catch-22, so increase the fares may make the system more financially viable but with out-dated track and limited frequency services no-one will pay more to use the system. My analogy: bus companies don’t pay for the roads they use. Also, why is rail infrastructure any different to police stations, or hospitals, or schools. They never make money and not designed to. The GDE is a bit of road that is free for all to use but cost $Xmillion to build. These are all public utilities. So, rail (light-rail) can work in Canberra, and heavy-rail can work to get people to Canberra. The government(s) just needs to invest and treat design and construction like any other bit of public infrastructure and stop thinking it will be a money-making venture. It is a public utility to make society a more liveable place.

And change the timings of the most popular trains – eg the weekend overnights, so that noone knows when the trains run anymore.

And radically reduce the frequency.

This has worked for ACTION too.

it all started going down hill when they closed the ticket office at jolimont several years ago.

i guess its fairly simple, if you dont want passengers make it as difficult as possible for them to buy tickets. force them to use a web system, where you cant actually book a ticket to yass junction and train from there.

then make sure that you dont use a terminal, just some random street with no signage.

then when patronage drops to nil, justify the closure of the entire service by proclaiming a lack of demand.

works for action.

damien haas said :

Last time I caught the ‘train’ to melbourne i had to wait for the connecting bus from canberra to yass junction. you no longer wait in the jolimont centre, but on the street in east row. there is no shelter, seating or signs. you just have to sort of guess where the bus will arrive.

i cant think of any other national capital where this occurs.

i think it is probably impractical to bring a full blown heavy rail station ala the upgraded melbourne spencer st station, into civic now, but there is certainly an opportunity to connect a future light rail to the existing heavy rail infrastructure.

Only thing I can think about re: changes to bus stop, other than the refurb, is the fact that Jolimont is more designed to be a terminal rather than an intermediary stop so making it ‘pass-through’ reduces stopping time and logistics? Also, the fact that Coutrylink may have decided not to pay the costs for Jolimont, after all it is private property and I am sure they charge a fee (like an Airport landing fee). I agree that the system has to work better and that maybe a better intermediary terminal be installed that is run and owned by ACT Government.

old canberran1:24 pm 02 Sep 09

Granny said :

I think every little kid should get to grow up watching trains go past.

….and big kids!

I think every little kid should get to grow up watching trains go past.

As for the second, well you could always put the station underground, or elevate it.

Apparently Burley-Griffin’s idea was to put an underground station about where the Canberra Centre is now, under Ainslie Av. (No, seriously! It’s marked on this period map as “Mr Griffin’s route”).

That was considered an unnecessary extravagance back when there was nothing built above the surface there… I can’t imagine why.

damien haas said :

Last time I caught the ‘train’ to melbourne i had to wait for the connecting bus from canberra to yass junction. you no longer wait in the jolimont centre, but on the street in east row. there is no shelter, seating or signs. you just have to sort of guess where the bus will arrive.

i cant think of any other national capital where this occurs.

i think it is probably impractical to bring a full blown heavy rail station ala the upgraded melbourne spencer st station, into civic now, but there is certainly an opportunity to connect a future light rail to the existing heavy rail infrastructure.

For the first part I think that was only while they were putting the extra couple of floors on the hotel. That appears to have finished so maybe the buses are back where they used to be.

As for the second, well you could always put the station underground, or elevate it.

Yeah, my thought exactly. Get on at Belconnen station and sit back and enjoy the view all the way to Melbourne, or Adelaide, or Perth!

Its ironic that you cant do this in the nations capital, but if you live in small towns in NSW such as Goulburn, Yass or Wagga, you DO have access to the national rail network.

I like trains. They hark back to a different age. Apart from the fact that you get to see some great countryside from them, unlike a bus, which is frankly horrible.

Again, although I know you sort of made this point yourself, if you lived almost anywhere else in Australia, rail is a useful and regular part of public transport. Its sad that Canberra has never taken it back up after the causeway was flooded.

+1 Bring back the trains!

I reckon the approval for 24 hour air freight may see a revamp of the rail system between ACT and NSW/Vic, but I doubt we’ll see passenger number increase.

It would be truly brilliant to see inter-city rail introduced to Canberra in earnest. As Thumper said, imagine getting on a train in Civic reaching Melbourne or Perth, without needing a bus!

Even just giving us the chance to link Canberra more fluidly to the “tourist trail” of other state and regional capitals would be fantastic. Consider how easy it is to move about on Europe’s continental networks – and as has been mentioned above, the benefits for carbon emission reduction are obvious.

What do you think of the old rumour about developing our airport in order to support a future ultra-fast train link to Sydney? It would enable it to serve as a “third runway” for Sydney International, and Canberra could be a new suburb of Sydney!

passenger train travel has been marginalised in this country by lack of investment and a focus on road building. use of passenger trains in europe and the uk remains at a high level due to continuing investment in technology, making it attractive and efficient, retaining patronage. which in turn ensures renewed investment.

for some reason interstate train travel in Australia has dropped away markedly, with the existence of most lines propped up by freight.

i do not argue that road funding should be decreased in favour of rail funding, i would argue that rail funding be increased and targetted at renewed passenger train technology and new 21st century routes not reusing 19th century infrastructure.

Canberra to sydney in one hour is achievable by rail using technology which exists today.

If only they had kept/made this railway. Imagine being able to train it to Belco, and further to Yass, then Melbourne, by hopping on a train at Braddon or the Jolimont centre.

Bring back the trains!

Last time I caught the ‘train’ to melbourne i had to wait for the connecting bus from canberra to yass junction. you no longer wait in the jolimont centre, but on the street in east row. there is no shelter, seating or signs. you just have to sort of guess where the bus will arrive.

i cant think of any other national capital where this occurs.

i think it is probably impractical to bring a full blown heavy rail station ala the upgraded melbourne spencer st station, into civic now, but there is certainly an opportunity to connect a future light rail to the existing heavy rail infrastructure.

The Civic Platform was in present-day Garema Place (according to the captioned photo in the story, right about where the Chess Pit is). This is from the informative article Pandy linked to:

After crossing the Molonglo River, the line swung north-west in long easy curves which straightened out to run on a track somewhat to the south of today’s Amaroo Street, Reid, behind St. John’s Church and the site of the present TAFE College. Beyond that location, the line then passed to the north to a short platform located almost in the centre of what is now Garema Place. Beyond this point, the line branched into a short marshalling yard terminating near Eloura Street, Braddon.

I suspect the platform at present-day Mort St was that marshalling yard. Mort St itself was the route the line was supposed to take towards Yass.

The proposed railway, on a 1929 map and still there in 1946, leaves Civic on the eastern side of Northbourne ave and the heads out to Belconnen along the Barton Highway, turning south around Mt Rogers and then leaves the territory west of Hall and east of Gooramon Ponds.

Presumably the route was surveyed but there is no indication of it on the NSW side of the border.

Kids played on the remains of the Civic Railway platform in the forties, which was a pile of dirt behind Mort St

I think it would be wonderful to have the railway all the way to Civic again.

History, maps, photos and more on the railways of the ACT and other engineering works!!

http://www.engineer.org.au/chapter02.html

moneypenny26128:32 pm 31 Aug 09

Out of curiosity, where was the civic railway siding located?

Somebody once told me they thought it was located at the top of what is now City Walk (ie, not far from the old Hotel Civic site).

Not sure whether that is accurate…

pptvb: That story is demonstrably false, because the railway bridge over the Molonglo was not rebuilt after it was destroyed in the 20s, and the Civic station remained, unconnected, for many years after this event. The pictures in this RiotACT story show this (note the caption on the picture of the overgrown Civic station says September 1939).

pptvb said :

I remember a story an old boss of mine told.
He came to Canberra in 1946, so saw the city grow up(?).
Apparently when the powers-that-be decided to close the Civic rail station they started to remove the track from the Kingston end.
Halfway to Civic someone discovered that there was still a train at the Civic station.
The track had to be re-laid so the train could be driven out.
Only in Canberra.

Not true, they left the train were it was and built the Dickson Tradies around it. lmfao NOT!

I remember a story an old boss of mine told.
He came to Canberra in 1946, so saw the city grow up(?).
Apparently when the powers-that-be decided to close the Civic rail station they started to remove the track from the Kingston end.
Halfway to Civic someone discovered that there was still a train at the Civic station.
The track had to be re-laid so the train could be driven out.
Only in Canberra.

The quote was from Section 9 of the First Schedule – Seat of Government Acceptance ACT 1909 which I believe is still current law. The Seat of Government Acceptance ACT 1922 corrects errors but does not, I believe, repeal these words in the First Schedule.
The Commonwealth must build the railway north to the NSW border.
I stand to be contradicted by a competent legal opinion!

As confusingly phrased as the Seat of Government Act 1909 and 1922 are, I don’t -think- the latter did anything but make an amendment to clause 5 of the First Schedule of the 1909 Act and then go on to define the shape of the bonus parts of the Territory that had been forgotten about.
NSW then changed Schedule 3 of their Surrender Act 1909 to achieve same.

So that 1909 law says Gungahlin should eventually see price rises, the minute the Commonwealth intends to take NSW up on their generous offer.

(For reference, this is the Map used to define the landlocked part of the Territory by the NSW Dept of Lands for the Seat of Government Surrender Act, the solid red part being the part surrendered. The red outlined part was a different proposal for the ACT to pick up an extra portion of land.)

(Extra history bonus points: the freehold farmers whose names you see on that map all got shafted thanks to Mr King O’Malley, who is responsible for the ACT’s leasehold stance, as he was anti-speculator.
Freeholding farmers received minimal compensation for their lands, as the valuations were all being done by Federal public servants and were told “accept the Departmental valuation or hire a Queens Counsel and appeal to the High Court”.
The educational film explaining how a common-man may choose to exercise his powers granted under Section 51(xxxi) of the Australian Constitution (The Castle), would not be released for another eighty-seven years.)

“9. In the event of the Commonwealth constructing a railway within the Territory to its northern boundary, the State shall construct a railway from a point near Yass on the Great Southern Railway to join with the said railway…

Does this mean that if we build a railway to the ACT/NSW border, NSW is obliged to build it the rest of the way to Yass?

It actually puts a lie to a claim by a recent Canberra Times editorial:

“Indeed, Walter Burley-Griffin envisioned the ACT would have its own light rail network, and that train services from Sydney would terminate in Civic. In the event, the Sydney
line made it only as far as Kingston…”

but it also states:

“Increased congestion on Australian roads, and the likelihood that oil prices will rise as world supplies begin to dwindle, make it inevitable that rail will assume greater
importance in future transport calculations. Just when that might occur is difficult to predict, but any ACT government must continue to ensure that rail corridors are quarantined from redevelopment for the day when a light rail system (or a combination bus-rail system such as Adelaide’s O-Bahn)…”

James-T-Kirk12:40 pm 31 Aug 09

Surely this is not unusual – I am sure I have seen temporary IT systems in place for what feels like that long 🙂

This is the greatest story ever of public service efficiency.

The temporary rail line to the national capital washed away 87 years ago and….

No doubt someone somewhere is still waiting for the paperwork.

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