Belmont Rec Reserve

Carina, Queensland

We received a brief from the Brisbane City Council requesting a new playground with a Tram Theme.  We had never been asked to design a tram before and to be honest thought it was an unusual request.  But a bit of Googling brought the whole reason of having a tram to light.

The Belmont Tramway was a short-lived railway in the south-eastern suburbs of Brisbane. The Shire constructed a tramway 6.9 km long from a junction in Cleveland railway line between Norman Park and Morningside. There were passenger shelters at Belmont Junction, Seven Hills, Mount Bruce, City View, Mayfield Road, Carina and stations with good facilities at Springfield and the terminus at Belmont.  It was built by the then Belmont Shire Council and opened in 1912

It closed in 1926.  664 meters of the track bed along Old Cleveland Road became part of the Brisbane City Council electric tram route in 1948.  Brisbane City Council built new tracks along a similar alignment as the old tracks connecting into Brisbane vast Tram network.  Park of these tracks can still be seen today located on Old Cleveland Road at Carina.  On the 24th March 2000, these tracks were entered into the Queensland Heritage Register.

So with this history in mind we can see why the council wanted to draw and that incredible history.  We continued our research as we wanted to make the play unit as bespoke as possible.  We found photos of the original trams and tried our best to incorporate as many of it’s features.  See if you can find some of these features in our photos!