Fremantlebiz - Paul's Letter from Australia

The Fremantle railway bridge - not as environmentally friendly as the old one

Adjacent to the downstream side of Fremantle traffic bridge is the Fremantle railway bridge. It's surprising to me that neither structure have been accorded more dignified names, but they haven't.

The railway bridge is post 1965, therefore it's 'modern' for me. Its design is a series of concrete pylons topped by a simple steel span supporting the two tracks of the Fremantle to Perth line. It was a case of minimalist functionality which blighted the view of harbourscape to the extent it was eventually painted blue in a futile attempt at disguise.

When I was a teenager in the late 1950s there was a much lower and more picturesque timber structure in existence. Its carpentry complexity was substantial. Sadly, there seems to be very few photographs of it existing in the public domain. Here's one from the state's online archival collection which was snapped decades before I was born.

The water between the two bridges was relatively shallow and the tidal currents very strong. A few times with mates I jumped off it deliberately in order to be swiftly carried towards the traffic bridge. It was great fun for boys, but the rocky bottom was a bit unpleasant on the feet and was a favourite haunt of cobblers, (catfish with barbed spikes) which is why we didn't do it very often. Amateur fishermen also used the train bridge - hand lines only in those days.

The old train bridge was demolished about 1965, which was the same year I was conscripted into the Army. The removal of the bridge enabled Fremantle harbour to be extended in order to accommodate the bold new age of container ships. A new bridge was also needed to accommodate the larger and much heavier diesel-electric locos.

Today there is almost no indication of what the area used to be like only a half century ago. The northern shoreline was dominated by light industry, but that has all been replaced by wharves and container cranes. The former river area was dredged very deep. In those days most government agencies seen to have little interest in considering any potential environmental impact on projects involving the Swan River estuarine system.

When I was taking photos last week, I did find a remnant portion of the old shallows which used to dominate the area the two bridges. It still looks like a hungry monster has taken a great chomp. There are no cobblers in the Swan River any more.

The present railway bridge angles in much closer to the traffic bridge at the northern end. This was done to accommodate the harbour extensions. It was built before the line was electrified. The next picture shows the elegant engineering solution to fix the posts supporting the overhead conductors.

The view of the harbour from a passenger train should be sensational. Unfortunately most of the windows of trains on this line have been scratched by morons with their diamond rings. Diamonds are a vandal's best friend.

Beneath the bridge on the far side is where the pilot boats lurk during their slack times. They service ships out in the ocean so it would seem more logical in this fuel-economising age that they should accommodated in the basin off the North Mole, instead of the most inner part of the harbour. Perhaps it will occur to someone of influence one day?

In conclusion, I've also included a composite panorama of the bridge and harbour taken from the other end of the traffic bridge. You can view it by clicking it up here.

© MMVIII Paul R. Weaver.

Click here to visit 'dogandcatwatcher', my YouTube website.

Original still photographs are stored online in a cache at my Panoramio website or my Picasa site. Most of them have a brief description and a link back to a relevant essay. Images on Panoramio can usually be enlarged several times by clicking them.

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Check out each month's subject index on the Calendar Page for my "common-man" monologues about survival in 21st century Australia – plus a little history occasionally. An original essay is added most days as part of an undertaking to write at least couple of million words. Zzzzzzzz!

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