The History of Yeronga - Part 18

With the new 2023 Yeronga train station up and running, it is timely to reflect on the history of the original station 139 years ago.

Charles Buzacott became Postmaster-General in January 1879 and was responsible for linking Brisbane to London by telegraph, plus the introduction of the telephone. He accepted a lifetime appointment to the Queensland Legislative Council in 1894 but resigned in May 1901. In 1880, he purchased the controlling shares in the Brisbane Newspaper Company, owners of the Brisbane Courier and The Queenslander and was managing editor until 1894.ⁱ

Buzacott’s papers immediately began using the name ‘Yeronga’ to distinguish the area from Boggo. Untangling where Buzacott himself obtained the name suggests that it originally existed in some form as an Indigenous name for the area. ⁱⁱ Buzacott used it himself for his own home. ⁱⁱⁱ The house was on a large block which went down to the river, on the corner of Feez and Kadumba streets, and called “Yerong-lee” - with no “a” at the end.

It is not hard to see why the railway department picked up on the ‘Yeronga’ name and used it for the railway station when it opened in 1884. Interestingly enough for such an important project, the line did not have a formal opening but simply commenced in revenue service on June 2, 1884, with three trains arriving daily at Yeronga Station at 5.56am, 11.51am and 6.01pm.The new Yeronga station is on the site of the original but other stations towards the city had to be moved as a result of the disastrous floods of 1890 and 1893, with a new line built on higher ground in 1896.

Although there had been much written about the benefits of rail, its arrival to the area was not without problems.There was even an attempt to derail a train at Yeronga on March 1, 1887, by putting nine large stones on the rails. ^iv It seems that this may have been more than hooliganism, for the following year a large local meeting was held and chaired by Mr Grimes to express concern about the new railway not serving the needs of the area - both by timetable failures and high price of tickets.Time and again in the meeting, the view was expressed that the various problems did not ‘encourage settlement’ of Yeronga.^v The cost of a train fare at that time from South Brisbane to Yeronga was five pence in first class and three pence in 2nd class.^vi