Geographically, Brisbane has some rich section car history. For example Queensland Government Railways almost exclusively used Fairmont products in Brisbane and around the state of Queensland which inturn supported the presence of the Tutt Bryant Company located in Evans Road, Salisbury known as Tutt Bryant Qld Limited. Fairmont also had an office in Brendale, Pine Rivers.
I undertook some research and discovered that one kind and enthusiastic gent, Mr Baker, still lives nearby and worked at Tutt Bryant in Salisbury.
On Saturday 17th April 2004, I met with Mr Baker who was employed between 1950 and 1984, starting out as a Field Engineer and retiring with the company as their State Service Manager.
We chatted about his involvement with the company and I tried to extract anything and everything regarding his knowledge of Section Cars. It was all intriguing information and I'll share those elements with you below. In the interests of accuracy, I'll try to keep to the words Mr Baker used.
Below are the some of the highlights of our conversation.
Question - Who was Tutt and who was Bryant?
Response - Tutt and Bryant were both individual contractors and they formed a partnership to create Tutt Bryant. In latter years, Bowater took over the company and the parent company changed its name to Bowater Tutt Bryant. One of the low points was when Bryant died. He was a very active individual and he was using one of his earth moving machines when he suffered a massive heart attack. He was taken to Nambour Hospital where he died. I helped arrange for his transportation back to New South Wales where he was laid to rest. In due course the company name was changed to “Tutts”
Question - How did you become involved with Tutt Bryant?
Response - I was originally in the area of Field Engineering in NSW, I then accepted the post of Tutt Bryant State Service Manager for Queensland. I stayed with the company over many years. I visited the Fairmont factory in Minnesota and also hosted representatives from Fairmont Motors here in Australia. We had very strict standards to meet and we were never permitted to modify anything to do with the motor itself.
Question - How did Tutt Bryant come to be involved with Railway Section Cars?
Response - Tutt Bryant were a large engineering and manufacturing company. From time to time we would become aware that a contract for “x” amount of section cars would be required by the railways. It would be usual for the railways to want around 20 cars per tender. It was never 50 or 100. We would gather the contract documents, send them to Sydney where they would be looked at with a fine toothcomb. No two contracts were the same from the railways because the cars would probably be going to different areas & require different things. Once Sydney gave the ok that the `specs' were within our capability we would officially tender. We knew of the Wickham men and their product and it was important for us not to lose the business to such others, even though these such tenders were considered minor. It's important to remember that even though it was the 60's era, it was still a competitive environment.
Question - How many people did you have assembling the cars?
Response - It would only have been around 4 to 6. Most of the materials required to assemble the cars would be there, some extra time would be taken on the cabs that the railways here wanted on the inspection cars. But things ran fairly smoothly.
Question - How did the unassembled cars arrive and depart the Salisbury Depot in Evan's Road, and then how did the assembled ones leave?
Response - I recall they would be come by rail into Roma Street and from there, Brambles or the like would cart them to us. We would assemble them, test them and then certify them ready for use. They would then be picked up and taken to the railways by road transport.
Question - How did Tutt Bryant come to acquire the Evans Road site?
Response - During the war it had been a munitions depot, not far away was an embankment that was used to test stationary jet engines. The site was 4 acres and the Commonwealth were making special deals around 1948 for an industry such as ours to move onto such sites. This was an exercise by the Government to secure work for returning servicemen and generally to get things moving again post-war. Governments were subsidizing Queensland made products by 10%.
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