Mother’s Bridge in Wagga was designed to accommodate mums with prams but was a bonus for cyclists too: Photo: CSURA.
When Wagga Wagga’s curiously named Mother’s Bridge opened in 1936, a remarkable twin coincidence made national headlines.
“Twins In Prams Were The First Travelers,” proclaimed the Sun newspaper in October, 1936.
“By a coincidence the first to cross the new railway footbridge at Wagga were twins in their pram. Twins were also the first to cross the Hampden Bridge nearby in 1895.”
Sadly the wooden bridge across the Murrumbidgee was demolished in 2014 and the original Mother’s Bridge is in the process of being replaced as work continues on Inland Rail’s multi-million dollar upgrade.
But if we rewind to 1936, the city was buzzing with the news that the eagerly anticipated mum-friendly overhead railway footbridge was about to be unveiled.
Mother’s Bridge will be replaced by the taller Wagga Wagga Station footbridge: Photo: Inland Rail.
Ever since The Great Southern Railway rolled through Wagga in 1878, crossing the tracks had been a precarious proposition. Former mayor Harry Fitzhardinge was an early casualty, killed by a train at night on his walk home in April 1893.
Residents on the southern side of the railway line spent decades advocating for a safer pedestrian route and in the early 1920s a footbridge was constructed at the end of Macleay Street.
Almost immediately, it was deemed inadequate and poorly situated with a rugged dirt path leading to steep staircases that could not be accessed by mothers with prams.
A fierce debate broke out between the council and the railways about who should deliver the solution to this dilemma faced by the city’s mothers.
In 1923, when Commissioner for Railways James Fraser visited Wagga to confirm plans for a new overhead bridge to replace the level crossing at Best Street, he dismissed the council’s request for upgraded pedestrian access.
“We commit ourselves to provide one bridge, and it is not fair for the council to ask us to provide a footway,” he grumbled in an account from the Daily Express in June, 1923.
“Surely the people getting the benefit of the footway would provide that.”
When the mayor insisted that it “will not cost much”, Mr Fraser shot back, saying, “Then if the cost is so small, the council could easily do it!”
When the Best Street Bridge was finally opened in 1926, Mayor E.E. Collins bailed up the visiting Southern Area Commissioner JD Reid to again push the case for a suitable footbridge close to the station.
He argued that the McLeay Street bridge with its steep flights of steps was “unsuitable, especially for the women-folk” pushing children in prams. The Best Street bridge, he said, was too far away and the grade was “exceptionally steep for perambulators”.
After much debate, an agreement was reached with Wagga Municipal Council covering 60 per cent of the £3000 bridge that included ramps to accommodate the needs of Wagga’s mothers.
Mother’s Bridge is being replaced, to make way for double stacked trains. Photo: Rob Nesbitt/Building Wagga.
On the eve of the bridge’s opening in October 1936, a railwayman from Junee joked that, since the bridge was already being described as “a mother’s bridge”, the first person to cross it should be a mum with a pram.
As hundreds gathered at the ramp to see the ribbon cut, Mayor McDonough spotted a pram in the crowd and announced that the twin babies Jack and Jill McGlynn would accompany he and the mayoress across the new bridge.
Ironically, the pram was wheeled behind them by the twins’ young nurse Joyce Boag who was not yet a mother herself.
It was only after the opening ceremony that it was recalled that when Hampden Bridge had been opened 41 years earlier, Mrs J Morrison had been the first to cross pushing her twin daughters in their pram.
Perhaps when the new, and less romantically named, Wagga Wagga Station footbridge is opened in 2027, we should make sure there is a set of twins on hand to uphold a uniquely double-barreled Wagga Wagga tradition!
