Ipswich Railway Station
Ipswich Railway Station 1865 – images courtesy of Picture Ipswich
The above picture is of the first Ipswich Railway Station, which was also the first Queensland Railway Station. It opened in August 1865 and the first station master was John Scorra. He lived in the upstairs part of the building. The staion’s walls were corrugated iron, with an inside lining of wood, leaving a space for ventilation. A wide verandah was built around the entire building over the ground floor, with an ornamental balcony-railing and supported by a lattice girder. On the upper floor the roof overhangs and forms a verandah similar to the one below. There was also a balcony round the inside of the building giving access to the office and other rooms. The roof was made of zinc supplied by the London office of the Vielle Montagne Zinc Mining Company, who also had supplied the zinc roofs for London Railway Stations.
The railway station was replaced in 1887 with the station pictured below. In 1918 a new Ipswich Railway Station was planned for the top of town but it never eventuated. The station below serviced our community right up until the 1980′s when the current Ipswich Railway Station complex was built.
Ipswich Railway Station 1887 – image courtesy of Picture Ipswich
Information taken from numerous articles from “The Queensland Times” & “Ipswich in the 20th Century” by Robyn Buchanan
I grew up in Rosewood and spent a lot of time traveling between Rosewood and Ipswich. How I wish this station had remained instead of the one that is there now.
Also I had been lead to believe that the first Queensland Railway station was the Grandchester station?
Hi Sunova,
Thanks for your comment. It sounds like you would have many memories of travelling on the train between Rosewood and Ipswich over the years.
In regards to the first railway station erected in Queensland, this is a rather interesting topic.
We have checked a couple of resources in our Local History collection (e.g. Jubilee History of Ipswich) which have stated that Ipswich had the first railway station in the state. However, both the railway stations at Ipswich and Grandchester (then Bigg’s or Bigge’s Camp) were erected in 1865. In an Queensland Times article by Robyn Buchanan (dated March 3 1986), she notes that the Ipswich Railway station opened in August 1865.
We also came across a Grandchester Railway Station Heritage Assessment Plan compiled in 2010 (http://www.queenslandrail.com.au/AboutUs/Documents/Grandchester%20HMP%20Final.pdf) that mentions that at the time the railway line between Ipswich to Bigge’s Camp was opened on 31 July 1865, only half of the Grandchester station was complete.
What a lovely picture of the Ipswich Railway Station in use till the 1980s. Where was it? Which street?
We have lived here since 1976 and have never seen that at all. We used to travel to Brisbane every weekday to work but we went from Booval station, and never went in to Ipswich station.
Hi Eunice and Ron,
Thanks for replying to this post about the Ipswich Railway Station.
The Ipswich Railway Station that was still in use until the mid 1980s was located in Union Street. According to the information we have on Picture Ipswich, this photograph was taken in 1985.
Thanks for that reply Jo, isn’t that amazing, we have lived here all these years and don’t remember seeing that station at all – Ron used to work in the Ipswich Post Office but did not get out in the town much at that time.
All the best
Eunice and Ron