Cabarita Junction - Sydney Tramway Website

About this website

At its height in the 1920s the Sydney tramway network was the second-largest in the British Commonwealth after London. You could travel to so many places by tram and the service was fast, frequent and reliable. While the beginning of the end came in 1937 when the tramways were made a separate governing body, no longer under the control of the railways, it was in the post-war era of excess that the tramways bade their farewell.

This was going to be the new world, the dark veil of wartime pushed away and forgotten. People wanted a life of luxury and excess, no longer were families content to live in a flat or terrace house in the inner-city and travel by tram. They wanted the American dream of owning a house on a quarter-acre block in the leafy green suburbs, driving everywhere in the comfort and convenience of their own car. Trams were considered dinosaurs, relics of times preferred forgotten.

What did all this achieve ? Where is that utopia today ?

Sydney today is paralysed by choking traffic at any time of day or night. Public transport is unreliable and disjointed. Dreary suburbia has mutated from the city like a plague. Roundabouts, shopping malls and endless acres of look-a-like houses. People but no community. The streets are lifeless, save millions of identical plastic cars queued at the traffic lights and gangs of children with nothing to do because Mum and Dad don't come home from work until late.

This website is about capturing just a small essence days gone by, times when neighbours stopped to chat, Mother walked up to the local shops each day to buy the day's provisions and a weekend's outing might be to catch the tram out to Watson's Bay. Trams were such an integral part of everyday life that they are a powerful symbol and reminder of how different things used to be.

The tide does seem to be turning. Hundreds of residential units are being built in the city centre every year. People are flocking to pay big dollars for tiny inner-city terrace houses. And with the price of petrol soaring, more and more people are realising that actually public transport does have its merits. Many cities of the world are returning trams to their streets. Maybe, just maybe, one day the NSW government will actually do something for the benefit of its people.

Why "Cabarita Junction" ?

The name "Cabarita Junction" was chosen for this website because it captures several things important to me. Firstly my dearly beloved Nanna has been a resident of Cabarita since 1948. She remembers the trams passing by her house, albeit only for a short time since they stopped running there in 1949. My Nanna is a truly inspiring person, always giving freely of herself, abounding in the sort of wisdom that can only be garnered from life's twists and turns, and someone who makes this world a better place. And so this website is dedicated to her.

Secondly it's a gibe at all the people I see around me everyday who live their lives in a bubble, no sense of anything but their own immediate wants and needs. These people wouldn't even know that many places in Sydney with the word "junction' in their names are so called because they were formerly tramway junctions. Often around tramway junctions small groups of shops would develop, their main customers being passengers changing trams. Cabarita Junction was the point where the double track line from Ashfield and Burwood diverged into two single-track branch lines, one to Cabarita and the other to Mortlake, and today there still exists a small group of shops. Other places include:

Bondi Junction - where the North Bondi via Oxford Street and Bronte lines diverged

Maroubra Junction - where the Maroubra Beach line diverged from the La Perouse via Anzac Parade line

Randwick Junction - where the Bondi Junction to Coogee cross-country line joined the main Coogee line

Neutral Bay Junction - where the Neutral Bay line diverged from the main Military Road lines

Cremorne Junction - where the Cremorne line diverged from the main Military Road lines

Spit Junction - where the Spit line diverged from the Taronga Zoo, Athol Wharf and Georges Heights lines

Some junction names haven't carried on:

Kensington Junction - where the Coogee and Clovelly lines diverged from the Anzac Parade Lines, also access to the Randwick Workshops

Daceyville Junction - where the Gardeners Road line joined the Anzac Parade lines

Crows Nest Junction - a complex junction where the Lane Cove and Chatswood to City and cross-country lines all intersected

City Road Junction - where the Cooks River, Earlwood, Canterbury and Dulwich Hill lines diverged from the western lines at Broadway

Epping Junction - where the Lilyfield line branched from the Balmain lines at Annandale, Harold Park used to be called Epping Racecourse

Yarra Junction - where La Perouse via Botany Road and the La Perouse via Anzac Parade lines converged

About The articles

The newspaper articles are mostly being reproduced from Microfilms, a slow and labourious process. Most younger people who have grown up in the information age won't ever have experienced the eye strain unique to researching on Microfiche and Microfilm. By today's standards it is a quaint old-fashioned method of saving storage space and protecting the originals. Our thoroughly modern State Library has no facility to save a digital copy of the Microfilm image so each article appears on your screen from the original newspaper by: Microfilming the orginal paper, enlarging and projecting the image onto a screen, scanning to digitise, printing out, and finally scanning again to redigitise for this website. It's a small miracle that anything is still legible after all that.

About me

I am only 29 and consequently have no fond memories of the "old days" when times were simpler, people were happier and trams trundled down Sydney's streets. That said, however, I don't much care for the world I live in today and do feel an intense sense of nostalgia for these times passed. Given the chance I would step back in time and never come back.


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		About this website At its height in the 1920s the Sydney tramway network was the second-largest in the British Commonwealth after London. You could travel to so many places by tram and the service was fast, frequent and reliable. While the beginning of the end came in 1937 when the tramways were made a separate governing body, no longer under the control of the railways, it was in the post-war era of excess that the tramways bade their farewell. This was going to be the new world, the dark veil of wartime pushed away and forgotten. People wanted a life of luxury and excess, no longer were families content to live in a flat or terrace house in the inner-city and travel by tram. They wanted the American dream of owning a house on a quarter-acre block in the leafy green suburbs, driving everywhere in the comfort and convenience of their own car. Trams were considered dinosaurs, relics of times preferred forgotten. What did all this achieve ? Where is that utopia today ? Sydney today is paralysed by choking traffic at any time of day or night. Public transport is unreliable and disjointed. Dreary suburbia has mutated from the city like a plague. Roundabouts, shopping malls and endless acres of look-a-like houses. People but no community. The streets are lifeless, save millions of identical plastic cars queued at the traffic lights and gangs of children with nothing to do because Mum and Dad don't come home from work until late. This website is about capturing just a small essence days gone by, times when neighbours stopped to chat, Mother walked up to the local shops each day to buy the day's provisions and a weekend's outing might be to catch the tram out to Watson's Bay. Trams were such an integral part of everyday life that they are a powerful symbol and reminder of how different things used to be. The tide does seem to be turning. Hundreds of residential units are being built in the city centre every year. People are flocking to pay big dollars for tiny inner-city terrace houses. And with the price of petrol soaring, more and more people are realising that actually public transport does have its merits. Many cities of the world are returning trams to their streets. Maybe, just maybe, one day the NSW government will actually do something for the benefit of its people. Why "Cabarita Junction" ? The name "Cabarita Junction" was chosen for this website because it captures several things important to me. Firstly my dearly beloved Nanna has been a resident of Cabarita since 1948. She remembers the trams passing by her house, albeit only for a short time since they stopped running there in 1949. My Nanna is a truly inspiring person, always giving freely of herself, abounding in the sort of wisdom that can only be garnered from life's twists and turns, and someone who makes this world a better place. And so this website is dedicated to her. Secondly it's a gibe at all the people I see around me everyday who live their lives in a bubble, no sense of anything but their own immediate wants and needs. These people wouldn't even know that many places in Sydney with the word "junction' in their names are so called because they were formerly tramway junctions. Often around tramway junctions small groups of shops would develop, their main customers being passengers changing trams. Cabarita Junction was the point where the double track line from Ashfield and Burwood diverged into two single-track branch lines, one to Cabarita and the other to Mortlake, and today there still exists a small group of shops. Other places include: Bondi Junction - where the North Bondi via Oxford Street and Bronte lines diverged Maroubra Junction - where the Maroubra Beach line diverged from the La Perouse via Anzac Parade line Randwick Junction - where the Bondi Junction to Coogee cross-country line joined the main Coogee line Neutral Bay Junction - where the Neutral Bay line diverged from the main Military Road lines Cremorne Junction - where the Cremorne line diverged from the main Military Road lines Spit Junction - where the Spit line diverged from the Taronga Zoo, Athol Wharf and Georges Heights lines Some junction names haven't carried on: Kensington Junction - where the Coogee and Clovelly lines diverged from the Anzac Parade Lines, also access to the Randwick Workshops Daceyville Junction - where the Gardeners Road line joined the Anzac Parade lines Crows Nest Junction - a complex junction where the Lane Cove and Chatswood to City and cross-country lines all intersected City Road Junction - where the Cooks River, Earlwood, Canterbury and Dulwich Hill lines diverged from the western lines at Broadway Epping Junction - where the Lilyfield line branched from the Balmain lines at Annandale, Harold Park used to be called Epping Racecourse Yarra Junction - where La Perouse via Botany Road and the La Perouse via Anzac Parade lines converged About The articles The newspaper articles are mostly being reproduced from Microfilms, a slow and labourious process. Most younger people who have grown up in the information age won't ever have experienced the eye strain unique to researching on Microfiche and Microfilm. By today's standards it is a quaint old-fashioned method of saving storage space and protecting the originals. Our thoroughly modern State Library has no facility to save a digital copy of the Microfilm image so each article appears on your screen from the original newspaper by: Microfilming the orginal paper, enlarging and projecting the image onto a screen, scanning to digitise, printing out, and finally scanning again to redigitise for this website. It's a small miracle that anything is still legible after all that. About me I am only 29 and consequently have no fond memories of the "old days" when times were simpler, people were happier and trams trundled down Sydney's streets. That said, however, I don't much care for the world I live in today and do feel an intense sense of nostalgia for these times passed. Given the chance I would step back in time and never come back.