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Heiner Road (built in 1864-65)

Significance:
Heiner Road is unique as it was definitely the first main road built by the Southern and Western Railway as the northern approach to the shared road / rail bridge which was the first permanent crossing over the Bremer River. As the busy wharf branch line was already in existence the Heiner Road overbridge was built to allow the construction of the road and river bridge to proceed without interfering with the cargo being hauled up from the Railway Wharf.

History:
The northern approach road was built by Peto, Brassey and Betts for the Southern and Western Railway at no cost to the Municipal Council of Ipswich which subsequently agreed to maintain the approaches. The following is an extract from a newspaper article in 1922.................."Sub-contractor James Gilliver, a worthy employee of Messer's Peto, Brassey and Betts, having been with them in France, and was with those contractors during the construction of the early sections of railway line from Sydney, N.S.W., cut out the turf and made everything ready for the sod-turning ceremony performed by Lady Bowen. He it was who undertook all the excavations of earth and stone work from Ipswich onwards".

The following is an extract out of correspondence to the Railway Commissioner written on April 4th, 1892 by Henry C. Stanley (Chief Engineer)............."The original road which crossed the Bremer River by a Pontoon Bridge need not have been interfered with by the construction of the railway. The Government decided, however, to construct a bridge to accommodate both road and railway traffic and it therefore became necessary to divert the original road and form embanked approaches to raise it to the level of the bridge. Seeing that the cost of the combined bridge was defrayed entirely out of railway funds and that the Municipality derived very great advantage in being provided with a road traffic bridge between North and South Ipswich without contributing any portion of the outlay, I certainly think the least the Corporation can do in return is to maintain the decking and approaches of the bridge".

The letter was one of many in disputes between the Railways and the Municipal Council of Ipswich to do with the maintenance of the Bremer Bridge and its approaches including the Heiner Road Overbridge. H.C. Stanley was later to write "the present highly objectionable features of a combined bridge"
The Heiner Road was widened on the western side by the Municipal Council of Ipswich in 1902 after the 'Old Bremer Bridge' was handed over to Council and subsequently converted to all road traffic.

The northern approach road was subsequently renamed Heiner Road most likely in recognition of the Mayor of Ipswich at the time in 1902; C.W.L. Heiner (below left), 1901 map showing in blue the additional land the Municipal Council of Ipswich required to widen the road (below right).

Special Note :
Interestingly in 1939 The Queensland Main Road Commission's 'Committee on Improvement to the Bremer River Traffic Bridge Approach' considered two options to improve traffic flow to the northern approach.
Option A was a direct route from Downs Street to Heiner Road and Option B involved the removal of the Tarpaulin Store, the transferring of sidings, etc to allow Heiner Road to start to curve from the Northern edge of the Wharf Railway Overbridge to meet the corner of the Terrace and Downs Street, they were both estimated to cost 9,000 pound and neither option went ahead..

Proposed removal of Tarpaulin Store to improve approach to Heiner Road in 1937

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