Qualla: Brisbane Tramway Museum

Brisbane Tramway Museum: Introduction

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. On 13 April 1969, around 70,000 people crammed onto Brisbane's trams to ride them one last time. The city was tearing up the tracks that had carried it since 1897, swapping rails for buses in the name of progress. But a year earlier, a small group had seen it coming and formed a society to save what they could. Today, on a quiet 250-metre loop of track at Ferny Grove, their trams still run every Sunday afternoon, and the bell still rings out across the grass exactly as it did when these cars worked the city streets.

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Image: Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Brisbane Tramway Museum: Saving the Fleet

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Fork99, CC BY-SA 4.0. The Brisbane Tramway Museum Society was founded in 1968, the moment it became clear the Brisbane City Council meant to close the system down. There was an urgency to it; trams that were scrapped would be gone forever, and the volunteers were racing the cutting torches. In 1972 a ...

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Image: Fork99 | CC BY-SA 4.0

Brisbane Tramway Museum: The Cars That Ran the City

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit CC BY 2.5. The fleet reads like a roll call of a vanished daily life. The oldest runner is No. 47, a "California Combination" or "Matchbox" tram from 1901, with open and enclosed sections so passengers could choose breeze or shelter. There is a ten-bench "Toastrack," open to the air on ever...

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Image: CC BY 2.5

Brisbane Tramway Museum: Fire and Aftermath

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. That fire shadows the whole story. On the night of 28 September 1962, one of Brisbane's fiercest blazes tore through the Paddington tram depot and destroyed 67 trams, roughly a fifth of the entire fleet, in a single night. The council rebuilt some as the Phoenix cars, but the dis...

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Image: Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia | CC BY 2.5

Brisbane Tramway Museum: A System Rebuilt from Salvage

Mon, 22 Jun 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia, CC BY 2.5. What makes Ferny Grove special is that almost nothing here is a replica. The depot sheds are built from bays salvaged from the old Ipswich Road tram depot. The substation that feeds direct current to the overhead wires was assembled from equipment pulled out of Brisbane's origina...

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Image: Photographer: Troy Thomas; original uploader: Paddington62 at en.wikipedia | CC BY 2.5