GOOD morning – and we’ll dive straight in to our Quiz question about Rabaul and its tramway. We’re deeply indebted to the Bob McKillop and Michael Pearson book, End of the Line: A History of Railways in PNG; it was published by the UPNG Press in 1997.
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IN describing the development of the tramway, McKillop and Pearson note that the Norddeutscher Lloyd (NDL) company was the first to establish a settlement and wharf at Simpsonhafen on Blanche Bay. The settlement rapidly became Rabaul and by 1909, the German administration had moved its headquarters there.
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THE town included wide tree-lined avenues that provided space for footpaths, a tramline and a roadway under the shady trees. The book includes a delightful picture of Mango Avenue nestled under a heavy canopy of trees, and shows a flatcar on the tram line to the Botanic Gardens.
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THOSE readers who remember Rabaul in the fifties and sixties will recall that remnants of those world-renowned German botanical gardens still remained. Following the NDL example, the Neuguinea Kompagne and Hernsheim & Co both built jetties and warehouses; a coaling wharf, copra wharf and Toboi wharf on the western shore followed.
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IN 1914, The Sydney Mail reported: “It is a curious fact that each residence in the settlement has (access to) a line connecting it with the wharf, so that goods can be conveyed direct from the boat side.” The narrow gauge network connected the wharves to the business houses, the administration offices, the post office, Chinatown and the hospital.
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IT was “a complex pattern of light rail lines ... along the sides of most major streets”. In 1996, a section of a line that linked the town to the Namanula Hill residence of the German governor was uncovered by erosion that followed the eruption of 1994. This showed that the line ran from the NDL wharf and up Namanula Rd to Government House.
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THAT was no mean feat, for the gradient was steep and the length of the tramway some 3.3km; with the other street lines the total reached some 4.6km. We’ll share the rest of Rabaul’s light rail story tomorrow. Cheers!
– Dee Nesenolis