Kingston To Civic Railway
Griffin's original intention was for a railway to come to Canberra City, with stations on the north, east and south.
Work started in December 1920. The railway cost £A5370 and opened on 15 June 1921. It branched off from the Queanbeyan Canberra line at the Power House siding near Cunningham Street. It headed north on a raised embankment through the Causeway, and across the Molonglo River. The bridges over Jerrabombera Creek and Molonglo River were of low temporary standard. A siding was provided to the north of the river at Russell for the workers camp that was there. The line curved to the north west in Reid, behind St Johns Church and the TAFE. A platform for the railway was built in what is now Garema Place. Finally a line continued to the north to Eloura Street in Braddon where there was a marshalling yard.
The track was owned and maintained by the Commonwealth Railways with trains operated by the New South Wales Government Railways.
In July 1922 a flood on the Molonglo River washed away the legs on the trestle bridge, and left the bridge deck suspended by the rails, and sagging into the water. The bridge was never reconstructed. However plans were made to extend the railway line to Yass in 1924 and 1934.
Read more about this topic: Canberra Railway Station
Famous quotes containing the words civic and/or railway:
“It is thus that the few rare lucid well-disposed people who have had to struggle on the earth find themselves at certain hours of the day or night in the depth of certain authentic and waking nightmare states, surrounded by the formidable suction, the formidable tentacular oppression of a kind of civic magic which will soon be seen appearing openly in social behavior.”
—Antonin Artaud (1896–1948)
“Her personality had an architectonic quality; I think of her when I see some of the great London railway termini, especially St. Pancras, with its soot and turrets, and she overshadowed her own daughters, whom she did not understand—my mother, who liked things to be nice; my dotty aunt. But my mother had not the strength to put even some physical distance between them, let alone keep the old monster at emotional arm’s length.”
—Angela Carter (1940–1992)