Notes on local transport: Island Bay – Wellington's No 1 Destination

Early Island Bay was dominated by its meandering stream and swampy land, especially south of what is now Medway Street. The bay itself was sheltered by the island of Tapu te Ranga and this comparatively safe mooring for fishing boats, coupled with proximity to the excellent fishing grounds of Cook Strait, attracted early settlers from the Shetland Islands and Italy. As the bush was cleared and the swamp was drained both hill and flat land were farmed. The Dee and Dover Street area saw Chinese market gardens developed, the area south of Medway Street was turned into a race course, and a hotel overlooking the beach attracted many visitors. It was a long way from the city but advertisments from the Evening Post to be found in Papers Past show there was a private bus service of sorts. On 30 December 1882 we read that the Empire 'Bus and four horses will leave the Government Buildings every Saturday and Sunday at 2pm, calling at Newtown, for the above favourite bay. The single fare was 1 shilling and 6 pence, and the proprietor was R. Somerville.

On November 1 1883 an advertisment calls for tenders for an omnibus service between Island Bay and the Tramsheds, presumably those at the southern end of Rintoul Street. If any tender was accepted it appears the business did not thrive as the Evening Post of 12 December 1884 states that Mr. W. Freeman of the Island Bay Hotel, in view of the increasing popularity of the southern suburb, has succeeded in making arrangements for an omnibus service between Government Buildings and the Bay. A bus left his Island Bay Hotel every morning at 8.45 am and reached the Government Buildings at 9.30 am. Subsequently it left Government Buildings 10am, Island Bay at noon, Government Buildings at 2pm, and Island Bay at 5pm. It would finally leave Government Buildings at 5.45pm for the Bay.  Fares were 1 shilling each way.

In November 1886 “Somerville's Island Bay bus will leave the Government Buildings daily at 10am, 2pm and 5.45pm; will leave A Turner's Island Bay Hotel at 8.15am, 12 noon and 5pm.” Incidentally, Mr. Somerville had “Carriages, Buggies and Saddle Horses on Hire” and also “To undertakers- Hearses supplied for Funerals at 15 shillings” at his Imperial Livery Stables, Abel Smith Street, Telephone 158.  

By April 1897 Wellington City Tramways had buses connecting Island Bay  to (tram)cars at Rintoul Street which would then take the passengers to Thorndon and back. Buses left Island Bay at 8am, 9am and 10am, 3pm, 4pm and 5pm. The bus left Rintoul St for the Bay 8.30am, 9.30am, 2.30pm, 3.30pm, 4.30pm and 5.30pm. Fares Island Bay to Rintoul Street and vice versa were 6 pence or 4 pence by tickets Both tramcars and buses were horse-drawn, and would soon be replaced by electric tramcars, but  in 1903, as a taste of things to come, a motorised service car made an experimental trip from Courtenay Place to Island Bay with a driver and ten passengers. (See Magazine No 7 page 38)

 By 1900 Island Bay was not just a popular beach resort;   the three southern bays  had a sufficiently large settled population to warrant the Island Bay School being built that year.  In a Tramways department memo discussing concessions for school children some interesting figures are given – in October  1905 Island Bay School had 127 pupils, South Wellington (currently site of South Wellington Intermediate) 623, Newtown 976 and Clyde Quay 755. The number of children attending all schools in Wellington was a little over 7000. But the Bay was still too far from cheap and frequent public transport for much settlement to take place. All that was about to change.

If at some future date Island Bay  is serviced by  light rail residents may be interested to know that the city's founding fathers had visions and even plans for their version of railway transport – steam trains - many years earlier. A map dated 1892 shows a proposed railway to Island Bay. It runs from Te Aro station, on the foreshore at Courtenay Place, up Kent Terrace, and around the eastern side of the Basin reserve.  It then departs from the current bus route to run to the east of Adelaide Road, skirting the “College Reserve”, (still Wellington College grounds) and a “lunatic asylum” (currently the site of Government House) to a proposed station outside Wellington Hospital. The proposed track then meanders through Newtown and Berhampore, following no obvious or recognizable route, and judders to a halt in Clyde Street slightly north of the junction with Brighton Street, at the eastern side of the oval Island Bay “race course and park”. Te Aro Station, opened in March 1893 near the corner of today's Wakefield and Tory streets, was an extension of the steam trains service operating from the Government Station at the intersection of Mulgrave Street, Featherston Street and Lambton Quay in Thorndon, and there were grand plans, which never eventuated, to extend it to “Kilbirnie, Island Bay, Happy Valley, Karori and Makara”. Nearby businesses complained about the noise and dirt, and it was a disruption to traffic on busy city streets. Eventually it was superseded by electric trams and closed in 1917. 

Trams began operating in Wellington on August 24 1878, when a privately owned steam tram service ran between Thorndon and Adelaide Road. Like the steam train, however, these were subjected to many complaints, as they were noisy, dirty, and too heavy for their tracks which required constant maintenance. In addition they frightened horses, which were then a danger to pedestrians. Horse-drawn trams replaced steam trams in 1882, and when the Wellington City Council bought the business in 1900 it was decided to follow the successful English example of installing electric trams. An English firm was contracted in 1902 to install tracks and overhead wires and to supply cars, and on June 30 1904 the first section of electrified line was opened, from Newtown Park to the Basin Reserve, with horse-drawn trams completing the distance to Thorndon. Island Bay was the first remote suburb to be serviced by electric trams, with the route to the Terminus opening 2/12/1905. Prior to that horse trams ran to Duppa St in Berhampore. The Hataitai tunnel was opened in 1907 so that trams were able to run into the eastern suburbs. Initially the line to Island Bay was called Route A, and appears to still be thus identified according to a 1933 map. I have not been able to find when it became the No 1 Route. 

The trams had huge social impact on the growing city. In 1900 Wellington City covered Thorndon, Lambton, Te Aro, Mt Victoria, Mt Cook, Newtown and Berhampore. Well over 40,000 people lived in these areas, considerably more than inhabit the same space today. The result was unhealthy congestion and even slums. When the mostly rural areas controlled by the Melrose Borough Council (Roseneath, Hataitai, Kilbirnie, Lyall Bay, Melrose, Island Bay, Owhiro Bay, Happy Valley, Brooklyn and Kelburn) merged with Wellington City in 1903 they provided ideal areas for expansion, so long as transport to the city was available. Motor cars had not long been invented; they were expensive and regarded as unreliable toys for the rich. Horses, beyond the reach of most families, required expensive stabling. Roads were rough and often unsealed, making cycling and walking less than pleasant, and Island Bay residents of some prominence, including the architect William Chatfield whose mansion still stands at No 1 Mersey Street, complained bitterly in 1887 in letters to the Evening Post of the state of the main road through Island Bay (See Magazine No 6 page 38). The new trams provided the perfect solution, and it is well documented, especially in photographs, how Island Bay progressed swiftly from a few houses to a well populated suburb after 1905. Reticulated water arrived in 1907, and sewage was collected, making suburban life much more comfortable. The Island Bay Route was included under City lines and was the longest city route; when trams began to run to Karori and Miramar they ran in part on Borough lines.

The first tramcars were imported and assembled in New Zealand but were soon built entirely here. In 1905 the New Zealand firm Rouse & Burrell had built some suitable cars, though “not up to imported cars for finish and workmanship”and the fleet of cars numbered 32 (Memo dated 5/4/05).  Early in 1905 six imported cars were ordered; three double decker bodies and three open single truck cars of the Hong Kong type. Double decker trams regularly ran on the Island Bay Route as the trams east and west were routed through the Hataitai and Karori tunnels which could not fit them. 

The first line, an extension of the single line from Newtown's Athletic Park to Duppa Street, ran from Duppa to Reef Street and was also a single line with loops to enable cars to pass, for example at Mersey Street. The costs of complete duplication in 1905 were considered too high, but this did not prevent a deputation of  Island Bay  residents attending a Council meeting on 28 June 1906 urging the Council to undertake tramway duplication, drainage and the erection of shelter sheds at the terminus. There was obviously some delay in building a shelter, as the Electrical Tramways Engineer Orders Book had asked 27/01/06 “Please report what size waiting shed should be erected at Island Bay and what is a suitable site for it.”

Duplication was finally carried out from the Terminus to Duppa Street during the second half of 1923. It was preceded by an article in the Evening Post on 26 August 1921 concerning a meeting of the Island Bay Ratepayers Association the previous night, from which the following is an excerpt: 'The discussion at the meeting then centred on tramway matters, and the following resolution was carried unanimously:- “That this meeting of the Island Bay Ratepayers' Association receives with satisfaction the reply from the City Council to the effect that the council and the Tramway Department are anxious to proceed with the duplication of the tram track. Further, that having in view the constantly increasing inconvenience to residents caused by delays through cars waiting on loops, dangerous overcrowding, and the atrocious delays on Saturdays, which could be somewhat relieved if the tramway management could get their cars on a continuous run, this meeting pledges itself to again wait in strong deputation upon the council, should the promise to start the work of duplication not start at an early date. And this meeting places on record the fact that the Island Bay tramway scandal warrants residents taking even more drastic action unless relief is soon given.”' Scandal is a strong word – has anyone any idea to what this refers? 

The deputation of 28 June 1906 was told that drainage work was being carried out,  but low lying parts of Island Bay would still be subject to flooding almost a century later. At the same meeting Councillor Hindmarsh (see Magazine No 7, page 23) moved “That cars to Island Bay be at once provided with glass shelter fronts to protect the motormen”. The Mayor explained that the work of fitting glass shelter fronts was proceeding as fast as possible. It is interesting to note that a year earlier, on 04/05/05, the Tramway Workers Union requested glass windows as shelter for motormen, and was refused because “in heavy rain it was almost impossible for motormen to see in front”.  Island Bay residents who have walked any distance into the rain carried by a southerly gale will sympathise with both motormen and passengers.

The section boundaries changed from time to time over the years, as did the fares, but in 1905 the sections appear to be Terminus to Duppa, Duppa to Rintoul, Rintoul to the Basin Reserve, Basin Reserve to the Opera House, Opera house to Government Station. Fares were 1 section one penny, 2 sections twopence, 3 sections threepence, 4 sections threepence and 5 sections fourpence. There were some fare concessions, and special fares for children. Children under three were free unless they occupied a seat, while children under 12 were allowed to ride 1-3 sections for 1 penny. But because Island Bay was the longest route tram fares were comparatively expensive, and deputations to gain reductions and concessions were not infrequent. If Editha, in a letter to to evening Post dated 8/9/06 is correct  a  “large army” was still cycling into town, and poor people still could not afford to live in the suburbs. It is interesting to note that in 2014  a “large army” of cyclists still travel into town and back, and may like to remind the motorists who find them more or less objectionable that cyclists were here first.

The 1908-9 Annual Report dated 31/3/09 indicates that business was buoyant. Revenue was up, passenger numbers were up, profits were up. The power supply failed from time to time but no serious delays to traffic had occurred. Emergency waggons pulled by horses were to be supplemented by a motor-driven waggon. The number of tramcars available for use was now 80. A sprinkler car dealt daily with long stretches of dusty road and reduced the work to be done by the ordinary water carts, but unfortunately there are no details about which roads were unsealed. The main car shed was on Rintoul Street, Newtown, near the Zoo (now Council Housing) and the Council had secured land in Kilbirnie (still in use by buses) and Thorndon but as yet did not have the finances to erect buildings on these sites. In 1908 a tram service operated on Christmas Day for the first time since the inception of the electric service, a normal Sunday service with double fares charged. (By contrast Stagecoach buses have been free on recent Christmas Days.) A memo notes that Motormen and Conductors who worked Christman Day were entitled to double, not treble pay. There had been two fatal accidents during the year, both caused by the deceased alighting from moving cars. A considerable number of minor accidents were ascribed to the same cause. Conductors were instructed to restrain passengers but this was often difficult in crowded cars and while they were engaged in collecting fares. Men and boys selling newspapers upon cars were becoming a menace to public safety and and a perfect nuisance to conductors as they obstructed them in their duty. “Those selling the NZ Truth are the chief offenders”. No doubt ordering such people off the car was another of the conductors' duties, as was preventing intoxicated men from boarding, and dealing with threats of assault. Many items of small value were left on the cars and were stored in the Lost Property Office in Thorndon. Approximately half were claimed and the remainder sold from time to time by public auction. Tramways staff had their own band, (the Municipal Tramways Band) and received a subsidy from the tramways department on condition that they perform at intervals during the year at various parks and tramway termini.

As suggested above, tram travel was not without its dangers. A poster in the Alexander Turnbull Library illustrates the result of a lady and a gentleman getting off a moving car while facing the rear – both fall over. The right way, the poster concludes, is to face the front and wait until the car stops. This was no a joke – minor injuries were not uncommon and there were several fatal accidents most years. Trams did not halt for long and trying to board a moving car was also a frequent source of injury. In the very early years of tram travel women's Edwardian headgear could also be dangerous, with protruding hat pins, or grossly inconsiderate, as wearers took up far more space than they had paid for (see Magazine No 6, page 39).  But a tome of accidents held in the City Archives suggests that the most frequent mishaps were collisions between the tramcars and other vehicles – a dray, a coal cart, a butcher's cart, a milkcart, a baker's cart, and with probably more dire consequences with pedestrians, cyclists, horses and dogs. Each incident was investigated and it appears that it was almost always the vehicle driver's fault.As time went on, collisions with motor vehicles outnumbered those with horse-drawn transport. Trams could reach a speed of 65km as they gathered momentum going down a hill, and were thus faster than anything else on the road in their early days.  An inability to judge the speed of a car may have contributed to the frequent accidents and collisions.  The Island Bay Progressive Association Minutes of 4/5/55 complain of trams speeding between Luxford Street and Dee Streets. There is also an instance of a car window being broken by a cricket ball, and another of eggs being thrown at a tram.

Early tram cars were described as being double-decker, which need no explanation, and the Hong Kong type, in which each set of seats had its own side opening.  There were also trams with outside seating in the central portion. I recall two kinds; the Double Saloon with a door at each end and two more openings along the body of the tram, and the Fiducia with a single compartment only and a door at each end. Dropping off and picking up pasengers took very little time as the motorman's sole job was to drive the vehicle, while it was up to the conductor to spot the newcomers and extract fares from them while the tram was in motion (“ Fez Plez! Fez Plez!”).  Smoking was allowed on outside seats and at the back of the car.

The tram service reached its peak during the 20s and 30s and the cars built then lasted until the end of the tram service.  The war years saw changes in personnel as a man-power shortage meant many women were employed as conductors, while a photo shows women repairing tram tracks, apparently on the eastern side of the Seatoun tunnel. This solution, of employing women, to one problem (the shortage of men) produced another problem, and in 1942 the WCC was obliged to provide a toilet for women at the end of each line. A memo dated 18/06/1942 reads:

Conveniences for Women Conductors

Please make arrangements as required for the use of conveniences owned by private persons and located at termini, where suitable conveniences do not exist.

Rental will in each case be 10/- per month. Please investigate the position at Island Bay.

A list of rented conveniences indicates that they were usually attached to a shop at each terminus. Island Bay, however, had its own. A memo dated 5/8/42 reads “Tramways Convenience in the Island Bay Waiting Room. Yale Key outer door, women's lavatory marked 'Conductor' at end of passage”. 

A limited number of petrol buses were introduced in 1925, and diesel buses in 1936. After the war, following overseas trends, more motor cars appeared on the road. It was assumed this was the transport of the future and the tramways in general were allowed to run down. As they competed with more and more vehicles on the road it was decreed that buses were more flexible and the trams had to go. The first service to close was that running to Wadestown, in 1949, with others following in the 50s and early 60s  Island Bay kept its trams running until almost the end, until May 1963, and in the minutes of the Island Bay Progressive Association monthly meeting,  June 1963, we read:

“Business arising from the minutes (of the May meeting) included a report from the President (Mr Curry) on the function attending the departure of the LAST TRAM from Island Bay on Saturday 4 May. The President and Councillor Manthel spoke briefly to the very large – and very noisy – gathering of citizens. When the last tram eventually departed it was attended by a very large number of cars; the tram itself was so packed with non-paying passengers that it could barely move under its own power, but fortunately there were many willing helpers. The Manager of the Transport Department (Mr Coppin), several Councillors, Traffic Officers and Police also were present.” The last tram, which left  Thorndon for Newtown Park  on May 2nd 1964, received a similarly enthusiastic farewell. 

Trams were replaced by a mix of diesel buses and trolley buses, and the 51 years which have ensued have seen a number of changes on the No 1 route. Traffic calmers have come and gone, and the roundabout at  Dee Street, a source of irritation and concern when it was built in early 2005, may disappear if the proposed cycleway materialises. Once there was just a single No 1 route to Island Bay but now now Express buses No 4 and No 32  travel shorter routes (pink timetable), or you can catch a 29 (via Brooklyn) or  22 or 23,  which pass through the Bay (Orange Timetable). Trolley buses have got larger and larger, and whereas our- “stub” Terminus was fine for a tram (the conductor simply swung its pole round while the motorman shifted to the other end of the car and took off “backwards”) the trolley buses require at least one reverse manoeuvre to get around. This year (2014) it has been confirmed that the trolley buses are to be phased out, but it has not yet been decided what will replace them. Options include hybrid, electric or modern diesel buses. Will the trolleys create the same feelings of nostalgia as the old trams, still to be seen and ridden  in the Tramway Museum at Paekakariki? Only time will tell.