Global InformationMelbourne cable tramway system information
The Melbourne cable tramway system was a cable car public transport system, which operated between 1885 and 1940 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The first line, from Spencer Street to the end of Bridge Road Richmond via Flinders Street, was opened on 11 November 1885, and all planned lines were built by 1891, the last being the short Windsor-St Kilda Esplanade line, opened 17 October 1891. By then it had about 75 kilometres (47 mi) of double track (103.2 route km or 64.12 route miles) and 1,200 cars and trailers, on 15 routes radiating from the centre of Melbourne to neighbouring suburbs. It was one of the largest cable car systems in the world, comparable with those of San Francisco which had 23 lines, and Chicago which had 66.0 km of double track.[1]
With the exception of the Northcote tramway, which was privately built and managed,[2] the infrastructure of the network was built by the Melbourne Tramway Trust, which consisted of representatives of the 12 local councils served by the system. The trust bought land, laid the tracks, and built the cable winding houses. The Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company (MTOC) provided the trams and operated the services from 1885 to 1916[3] under an exclusive 30-year franchise arrangement with the Victorian Government. MTOC had been founded by Francis Boardman Clapp, an American emigrant, who had purchased the Victorian rights to the patents of the cable system developed by Andrew Hallidie. George Smith Duncan, who had built the Roslyn cable tramway in Dunedin, New Zealand, was the engineer in charge of the development of the Melbourne cable network.[3]
On the expiration of the MTOC's franchise in 1916, the cable tram network was transferred to the Victorian Government, and then passed to the government-owned Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) on 1 November 1919. The Northcote tramway was transferred to the MMTB on 20 February 1920.[2]
Although the first electric tram service was introduced in 1889, and ran for seven years between the outer Melbourne suburbs of Box Hill and Doncaster, the electric tram network did not seriously commence until 1906, when the Victorian Railways built an "Electric Street Railway" from St Kilda railway station to Brighton, and The North Melbourne Electric Tramway & Lighting Company built an electric tramway towards Essendon from the terminus of the cable system.[4] From 1924 the cable tram lines were progressively converted to electric traction. The last Melbourne cable tram ran on 26 October 1940, on the Northcote to Bourke Street route.[5]
- ^ "Melbourne's cable trams", David Hoadley, archived from the original on 21 November 2011, retrieved 17 October 2011
- ^ a b "Northcote: the on again, off again cable tramway", Friends of Hawthorn Tram Depot, retrieved 3 October 2011
- ^ a b "Cable Tramways in Australia and New Zealand", Joe Thompson, retrieved 17 October 2011
- ^ "The First Electric Trams", Yarra Trams, retrieved 17 October 2011
- ^ "Trams in Melbourne". Yarra Trams. Archived from the original on 27 September 2016. Retrieved 2 September 2015.