Chapter 4 - Work on the Railways - Rail, Tram and Bus Union of NSW

*On Wooden Rails <strong>Chapter</strong> 4 8/30/05 8:27 PM Page 163
On Wooden Rails - Celebrating 150 Years of <strong>Work</strong> on the NSW Railways
A Day in the Life
-Chullora Railway & Migrant Camp
A Shanty Town That Makes the Railways Ashamed
In 1948 a railway camp for railway workers was established near the corner of the Hume Highway and Brunker
Road, Chullora, adjoining the railway workshops. The camp was on a 45 acre (or 18 hectares) site, consisting
of small huts for single men, larger ones (‘Chalets’) for railway staff (drivers, firemen, guards and conductors.
By 1951 the camp was known as Chullora Accommodation Centre for Migrants. The camp was established to
provide accommodation for railway employees transferred from the country and as the Secretary for Railways,
Mr Anderson said, “to meet the urgent requirements of operating staff, drivers, guards and shunters, at Enfield
locomotive depot and marshalling yards”. It was also designed to accommodate displaced persons relocated
under the United Nations Relief Scheme, and allocated work with the railway department.
Originally comprising approximately 20 huts, the camp grew to 640 huts, housing thousands of workers and
their families in crowded and primitive conditions. Most of the huts were one room of 10 feet by nine feet (or
3 metres by 2.75 metres) in size, with a fuel stove, 2 electric lights and 2 powerpoints. Facilities such as laundry
(tub and ironing board), toilets and showers were shared. The camp had an Australian and migrant section.
Migrants were generally Eastern European displaced persons, mostly from Poland.
“In a crowded, run down shanty town at Chullora, 1500 New Australian men, women and children live as
tenants of the New South Wales Department of Railways in 640 huts each one 10 feet by 9 feet……..Nearby
in 136 bigger huts, Australian workers live in accommodation whilst better than the 10 feet by 9 feet huts is
still substandard.”
“Only railway employees can be tenants. The larger units, officially called chalets, are reserved for running
staff drivers, firemen, guards and conductors many of whom have come to Sydney from the country railway
centres.”
“Life in the 10 feet by 9 feet huts is primitive, because the huts when built just after the war, were intended for
single men only, the department provided only community showers, toilets and cooking huts. For the mothers
of families of small children they are pitifully crude.”
“The cooking centres consist of a galvanised iron shack with a low roof and a cement floor. In one, I saw an
open coke and coal fire, was burning under two long bars of railway track………At one end of the bars was
a camp oven, which looked as though it had not been used for months. It was the sort of cooking one would
have expected in remote fettlers’ camp, but not a big city.”
“Rent of the small huts is one pound a week, including electricity……Where a man has more than 2 children,
he is supposed to rent 2 huts at 1 pound a week each, but one official admitted that some migrants undoubtedly
have understated the number of their children in order to save the cost of an extra hut.”
“The original 10 feet by 9 feet boxes have taken on a new shape over the years as Chullora’s population had
grown from within, tenants have had added verandas, small vegetable gardens, kitchenettes, fences to keep
the children home and even car shelters.”
“ I spoke to Mrs S. Maka, whose husband is a fireman and acting engine driver. She came from Poland seven
years ago. Like all the New Australians, she had expected Australia to be an Eldorado after the harshness of
Europe……From camps in Europe, she came to Cowra and spent 2 years in a migrant camp there. She has
been five years in the 10 by 9 feet hut at Chullora. There are three small children.
The Makas have bought a block of land and have saved some money toward building a house. But as their
savings grow, the amount of money they need to start building seems to be growing ahead of them. ‘It seems
we will never have enough’.
“The Railways Department is well aware that it fathered a monster when it set up Chullora Park
Settlement……..The accommodation was regarded as purely a temporary measure, as the department had in
conjunction with the Housing Commission, a scheme for the provision of cottages for those employees and
others in the metropolitan area who were living in tents.”
Mr Anderson stated that “the department is already committed to very heavy expenditure in the maintenance
of the settlement and funds are not available for other than purely essential needs.”
Source: The above extracts describing the conditions of the camp and the plight of its ‘inmates’are taken from
an article (with the above caption) appearing in the Sydney Morning Herald on 9 April, 1957.
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