Postcard of Hawesbury River Railway Bridge in 1907

This postcard shows the railway bridge crossing the Hawkesbury River at Brooklyn on the Northern outskirts of Sydney in 1907. The railway bridge was opened in 1889. A major achievement of its time as one of the piers reached a depth of 162 feet before resting on solid rock, it was the deepest structure in the world. It took two years to build but in 1937 cracks appeared in some of the piers. Heavy traffic during WWII further weakened the structure and it became unsafe. Construction of a new bridge commenced in 1941 and was opened in 1946.

This view is remarkably similar today. The replacement bridge features very similar looking steel work to the bridge in the postcard. The island to the left is the Spectacle Island Nature Reserve and many of the tree cover hills in the top of image are still preserved in the Brisbane Water National Park.

The postcard of one of many sent to Amy, Lindy and Mrs. Hall of West Maitland, New South Wales. The postcards feature both Australian and overseas scenes. This card was to ‘Grandma’ (Mrs Hall) from her Grandson ‘A Cridland’ and thanks her for the postcard he had received for his birthday.

Post by Lynne McNairn
Digital Services

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Collection: Powerhouse Museum (96/150/1-142)

Tags: Brooklyn, Hawksbury River, postcards, railway bridge

The Powerhouse Museum's Photo of the Day blog features a new image each day, chosen from the Powerhouse Photo Library.

The majority of these images have been taken by Museum photographers for a variety of purposes such as for exhibitions, of objects in our collection, events, behind-the-scenes and location shots. We also feature many images taken by our Flickr community and from our visitors. We hope you enjoy the photographs and stories.

The licensing of each image varies however we are trying to release as many as possible under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.1 license.