Today, 25 March, 2009 a special service was held at the Sydney Opera House
to commemorate it's Danish architect Jorn Utzon.

Well before the 'first sod' was turned the site of the Opera House was
graced by a magnificent tram shed (carbarn to others) called Fort Macquarie
Depot which is shown in the attached picture. It had a sawtooth roof typical
of other Sydney tram sheds, but its appearance from the street and from
Sydney Harbour was very 'castle or fort like' with a tower at the north west
corner. This tower may have housed a water reservoir for the fire sprinkler
system but the depot's proximity to the harbour would have assured an
abundance of water for such a burning occasion which thankfully never
happened.

The tracks at the left side were marshalling sidings for the trams from
western and north western destinations which terminated at Fort Macquarie.
Several 'R1' and 'R' class trams can be seen awaiting departure. On
departure these trams encircled the north and eastern sides of the depot to
return towards Circular Quay on the track at the lower right corner of the
picture.

The Fort Macquarie elevated tramway signal box (tower) can be seen on the
left side at the commencement of the marshalling tracks. There was a single
track leading into the fenced depot yard and an 'O' class tram is standing
at the entrance.

In it's final years trams attached to this depot were of the 'R' and 'R!'
classes and until the tramway in King Street, Sydney was closed many of them
served to augment trams from Rushcutter's Bay depot on the eastern suburbs
line to Watson's Bay which suburb was near the entrance to Sydney Harbour.

There was a small park on Bennelong Point to the north of the tram depot and
my WW2 memory of this park was the display of wreckage of Japanese midget
submarines several of which entered Sydney Harbour on the night of 31 May
1942. The prime target for these submarines was an American cruiser the USS
Chicago moored in the harbour. About 12.30am a torpedo was fired towards the
American cruiser but it missed its target and exploded beneath the HMAS
Kuttabul a large Sydney harbour steam ferry which was in use by the navy as
an accommodation vessel. Nineteen Australian and two British sailors died in
this attack.

Near the top right corner of the picture can be seen one of the 'twin' steam
powered Manly ferries Dee Why or Curl Curl proceeding towards it's City
terminal at Circular Quay.

Missing from the aerial view is the breakdown tram which occupied a short
through siding at the south eastern corner of the depot. I have however
attached my colour picture of No 56s a former 'C' class passenger tram from
the late 1890s which was the resident Fort Macquarie Depot breakdown tram.
On the right side of this picture can be seen a large crane which was
located at the Garden Island naval base. During the 1942 attack by midget
submarines, the USS Chicago and the HMAS Kuttabul were moored in that
vicinity.

Noel Reed.