Paddington Tramways Substation - a photo on Flickriver

            The former tramways substation was erected in 1929-30, during a period of tramways expansion which followed the Brisbane City Council's 1925 acquisition of the tramways system from the Brisbane Tramways Trust. It was erected on Cook's Hill, along the Paddington line, on land which was formerly part of the adjacent Ithaca Fire Station.

The Brisbane Tramways Company, a private enterprise formed in 1895, introduced the first electric trams to Brisbane in mid-1897. Following lobbying by the Ithaca Shire Council, a tramway was extend along Musgrave Road to Red Hill, and a line was laid along Caxton Street and Given Terrace as far as Latrobe Terrace in 1898. The Red Hill line was extended to Ashgrove in 1924, and the Paddington line was extended to Bardon in 1937. The spread of the tramways network was a catalyst for residential development in the western suburbs.

In 1926 the Greater Brisbane Council, anxious to control the city's electricity supply, decided to build its own power house at New Farm, under the supervision of the BCC Tramways Department. Opened on 28 June 1928, New Farm distributed 11000 kW AC power to a network of eleven suburban tramway substations erected in the 1920s and 1930s. The function of the Paddington substation, the seventh in the network, was to assist the Petrie Terrace substation (erected 1927-28) in providing a better distribution of power to the increased western suburbs tram services.

Considerable attention was given to the design of these substations. Roy Rusden Ogg, the tramways' architect and construction engineer from 1926 until the late 1930s, in conjunction with tramways' chief engineers Nelson (1925-26) and Arundell (1926-49?), designed at least ten Brisbane substations between 1926 and 1936, and the first two stages of the New Farm powerhouse (1927-29 and 1934-36). Ogg also designed the Tramways Department's Head Office building on Coronation Drive (1929). The Paddington substation, constructed of bricks and structural steel from the old Countess Street power house (closed in mid-1928), was the first of his substation designs to incorporate a parapet wall, flat roof and exterior render.

The Paddington substation was automatic, equipped with an 1100 KVA transformer, a British-Thomson-Houston 1000 kW rotary converter, switchgear, support services, and an overhead crane (designed by the Tramways Department). The substation received 11000 volts AC electricity from the New Farm Power station, via an underground feeder cable. The transformer reduced this supply, which the rotary converter then converted to 600 volts DC for the tramways network.

The substation commenced operation on 11 August 1930 and remained in service until the phasing out of Brisbane's trams in the late 1960s. In 1969 the Paddington line was closed, the substation's electrical equipment was removed, and the building became a storage depot. In 1985, Hands On Art was given a fifteen year lease of the building.

**Queensland Heritage Register**

Taken on: May 17, 2021

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Camera: Canon EOS 80D, f/7.1, 1/50 sec, 16mm, ISO 100 (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Canon EOS 80D
Lens:	8-16mm
Aperture:	f/7.1
Exposure Time:	0.02 sec (1/50)
Focal Length:	16mm
ISO:	100
Exposure Bias:	-2 EV
Flash:	Off, Did not fire
Exposure Program:	Aperture-priority AE
Exposure Mode:	Auto bracket
Metering Mode:	Multi-segment
White Balance:	Auto
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Adobe Photoshop Lightroom Classic 10.1.1 (Windows)
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