| Physical description: | PHYSICAL CHARACTERISTICS - 1993:
DESCRIPTION:
The steam tram line to West Wallsend was built as an extension of the tram line from Newcastle to Wallsend. Total length of the line was 25 km into the city, and the trip took one hour thirty-two minutes. The line was standard gauge, and it carried trams consisting (mostly) of two carriages and a (steam) motor. The line opened in 1910 at the time of electrification of the Sydney system, and the redundant Sydney steam cars probably supplied the extra motors and cars needed to augment the Newcastle system. A tram shown at the West Wallsend terminus in a 1914 photograph (see 'Neath Mt Sugarloaf p.62) has a "B" class tram trailer, as used in Sydney from 1880 to 1891, and an "A" class Baldwin motor, No.39a, of the same period. Both may have come from Sydney, or have been part of the original Newcastle fleet.
The tram terminus was at the corner of Railway Street and Wilson Street West Wallsend. In the 1914 photo (noted above) the tram is parked on the N-W side of the street, against the Railway fence, and facing S-W (ie. on the right hand side of the road). The Museum Hotel can be seen in the background, across a house in Wilson Street. There is said to have been a loop at the terminus to turn the motors for the return journey, but nothing is shown on the maps seen, and no traces were seen.
The tram went from West Wallsend to Wallsend via Holmesville, Estelville, Edgeworth and Glendale. Within West Wallsend the route along Teralba Street is still evident. According to a map found in the Mines Register (c1910 to 1920) the tram route meandered on either side of Withers Street and George Booth Drive between Holmesville/Estelville and east Edgeworth), and an aerial photomap indicates that the exact route could probably still be traced on the ground. Within Edgeworth the tram ran alongside Main Road, but there are very few traces of it still in existence there, most having been obliterated in roadworks.
The single line had crossing loops at Pitt Town (?), Summit (?), Young Wallsend (now Edgeworth) and Holmesville. There were twenty three stops, many with platforms, and some with seats. There was a bundy clock at the corner of Wallsend Road and Teralba Street, just before the tram got to the terminus.
The Seaham and West Wallsend Colliery Railway provided a twice-daily passenger service (and of course it met the Sydney trains after the Hawkesbury Bridge was opened in 1889), but the need for a more direct mode of transport to Newcastle City was felt. Construction of the tram line was started in April 1909, and the service opened on 19th December 1910. The tram (steam) motors and trailer passenger cars were well suited to the long distances and plentiful coal supply of the West Wallsend route, and they seem to have given good service.
The tram service was popular, and generally uneventful except for a couple of derailments, in one of which the tram driver was killed. The steam tram service lasted until the Depression, and the last tram ran on 2nd November 1930. The tram service was then replaced by a motor bus.
According to maps in the mines register, at least some of the land for the tramway was resumed for tramway purposes by Government Gazette in 1909. We have not researched the current title and ownership of the former tramway land, but the current Parish Map shows that some gazettals of land for tramway purposes are still in effect. The route is now mostly vacant land or roadway, except where it passes through the High School grounds.
CONSERVATION ACTION: Recommended that the tramway easement be retained where it still exists, and consideration be given to the development of a cycleway along the route from Wallsend to to West Wallsend.
INTERPRETATION: some interpretation of the trams and tram route should be undertaken, particularly if a cycleway can be planned. |