Sandridge Rail Bridge
In 1853 the backwater settlement of Melbourne had been transformed into a
bustling, hustling wild west town with the discovery of gold. Down by the
city docks at the Western Market, the traders could sell you all you needed
for an expedition to the goldfields. �You�ll need snow shoes my man, and
bear traps � have they told you about the drop bears? Hurry, hurry, hurry!
The best bear traps in Melbourne today only at the Western Market from Crazy
Otto!� Fortunately we�ve moved on to more civilized times.
Few passenger vessels could make it up the Yarra to Cole�s Wharf and the
Western Market. In fact few could even secure a berth at the major piers in
Sandridge (now Port Melbourne) or
Williamstown. Many took
the Geelong option. It was
closer to the Ballarat
goldfields (and MUCH closer if you believed some of the distorted maps
produced at the time by Geelong entrepreneurs [who at that stage were just
starting to develop their characteristic bollard-like {which we have
commented
on in an earlier newsletter} stature and who had a number of inns to
comfort the weary traveller, many with serviced rooms {although I don�t
understand what that meant}] and where the bear traps were said to be
cheaper) but still the majority of ships had to anchor in Hobsons Bay (at
one stage it was said you could walk across Hobsons Bay on the decks of
ships) with many of them abandoned by their crew who had headed off to the
goldfields. Passengers often found that in order to be ferried from their
ship to Sandridge Beach or Liardets Beach it cost them as much as their
total passage from Europe or America. Then once they were landed, they had
to cart their heavy luggage several miles through the swamps over dubious
tracks to reach Melbourne. You would possibly encounter a few tents offering
�colonial wine� or �guaranteed fast communications with the home country� or
advance touts for serviced accommodation in Melbourne. Fortunately we�ve
moved on to more civilized times and today if you make your way up Bay
Street Port Melbourne you will find stores offering cafe lattes,
international phone cards and the occasional young lady promoting the
benefits of certain short-stay hotels.
It was in this atmosphere that Australia�s first steam railway was formed
to transport passengers between Melbourne Station (now called Flinders
Street Station) and Railway Pier in Sandridge (now called
Station Pier). Like much of
Melbourne�s early infrastructure, the railway was created by private
enterprise and only much later taken over by the government. A timber bridge
was built across the Yarra in 1853 in a straight line between the city
station and Port Melbourne. The best place to view the remains of this
important rail route is from the observation deck
at the Eureka Tower. From there you can still clearly see the route
(albeit with a casino plonked on part
of it) and the reason for the bridge�s unusual alignment across the Yarra. Hoddle�s government grid imposed its
stark geometry on the landscape with little regard to practicality.
Elizabeth Street was an intermittent creek which regularly flooded (some
older [I refrained from the term geriatric] subscribers may even remember
flash floods in the 1970s) but the Sandridge Bridge struck out in a
practical straight line to the docks thus creating a defiant diagonal.
Melbournians don�t like diagonals � they�re somehow sinister, along with
curves, and lets come straight out and say it � Sydney-like!
The diagonal Sandridge Bridge carried the first steam passenger service
in Australia. IIRC (that�s �If I remember correctly� for those whose jobs
allow you the time to spell such things out in full) the steam engine on the
first journey was not a locomotive but a stationary steam engine strapped to
a wagon and somehow supplying traction to the wheels. I�m sure some gunzels
out there will fill us in on that.
By 1859 the bridge had been replaced by a sturdier one. Then, came 1888
and our grand exhibition year. The gold had run out but Melbourne had become
an important mercantile centre. There was a major International Exhibition
to be held in the
temporary building
built by David Mitchell (they say
his daughter wasn�t a bad
singer) in the Carlton Gardens and
Fred Baker had been brought out from
London to sing the role of the devil in the new
Princess Theatre, and Steven Street
had been renamed Exhibition Street because an election promise said it would
be turned into a boulevard with a bridge extending across the rail yards.
The main function of the rail line from Station Pier had now become the
transporting of heavy freight so a new bridge was to be built.
The contractor David Munro was engaged. He was already building the new
Princes Bridge nearby, and,
from what we can tell, an engineering student already working on Princes
Bridge to pay his way through university, showed particular interest in the
new materials (steel girders instead of iron). We don�t know if
John Monash ever worked on
the current Sandridge Bridge, but we can be pretty sure that he clambered of
every inch of it during its construction.
When the last rail services across the bridge ceased in 1987 and were
replaced with light rail taking a slightly different route to Port Melbourne
the bridge remained abandoned and derelict for a number of years. The bridge
was an important relic of Victoria�s industrial past, but because of its
bulky structure it also blocked views up and down the Yarra. If it was
removed it could help turn Melbourne into a riverside city � if it stayed it
provided a connection with the past. It was therefore with interest that we
observed what was to happen.
This year, several days before the Commonwealth Games the bridge was
reopened as a pedestrian access with a series of 2 dimensional sculptures
representing various waves of migration to Victoria. The press releases said
that these sculptures will move across the bridge three times a day. I have
looked closely and am yet to see one move (hums whimsically �The hills
are alive, I just saw one moving�). I�m sure if enough subscribers
concentrate their energies on the bridge we will be able to make them move �
probably several days before state election time.
The Sandridge Rail Bridge represents many things to those who know its
history (ignore many of the �official� guides and popular tourist bibles
which tell you it is the �original� rail bridge) but currently it represents
to us a particular publicly sanctioned approach to historical preservation.
In the manner of certain educational institutions and museums which are
busily rewriting history to fit a prevailing ideology, the current Sandridge
Bridge uses a historical structure as a platform to display certain
ideologies (however laudable) that have everything to do with now and little
to do with then. If you want to appreciate the bridge and why it�s there, we
recommend viewing it from underneath. There in the quietness you can get a
feeling for what made it important when it was built. Later you may want to
venture onto the platform above to receive the �official� version of why the
structure is important.
BL
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Other articles in the series Seven Monuments of Melbourne: