I am now 72 and I grew up in Brisbane. I traveled every day to my apprentice job in Fortitude Valley on a tram for sixpence, recently changed to 5 cents, but it was still sixpence to me. It was a lot since I my pay was only $13.85 a week in 1966 and train fares took a big chunk of that too. Brisbane also had trolley busses, electrically driven busses that had to stay under the overhead wires to stay connected, but moved around in the traffic like any other bus. I worked opposite the Light Street Tram Depot, and witnessed the gradual decline of the trams as they were neglected and allowed to become serviceable to justify their removal in 1969. The council also wanted the large and valuable real estate that tram depot was taking up which was out of town when built, but by the 60s was in the city. People also complained about the ugly web or overhead wires throughout the city and were actually happy to see the trams go. In addition, the traffic in the lane next to the tramlines had to stop whenever the tram stopped to ensure people getting off the trams were not run over. In hindsight it was a bad move and should have been improved rather than removed, but at the time, most people were happy about the change and giving more freedom to the increasing number of cars in post war Australia. As a sweetener, the unions ensured that all the employees of the tram service were reemployed in the bus infrastructure that replaced the trams.
brisbane came up a lot in my research, because Robert Risson was from Brisbane and ran the tram board there. It's such a shame that Brisbane didn't keep there network as well. There was a fire in the tram depot in the 60s that destroyed around a fifth of the tram fleet, and I think that was the final nail in the coffin.
My decision to leave Brisbane forever was based in part on the "accidental" fire that destroyed the teams, and the late night bulldozing of the Bellevue hotel. After 45 years in the Canberra area, NOTHING - including a new ice age - would induceme to return to Queensland.
@@jaydentownsend5402 It's how they get rid of stuff in Brisbane - TWO fires in the old part of the Chermside shopping centre, both on the night before the opening of the new part????
I’m 22 and from Adelaide. I wish I could have experienced the tram network here at its prime. I regularly holiday in Melb and the trains and trams work so incredibly well together. Awesome video. Well done🙌🏼👏🏼
Adelaide had a reputation for building large trams & busses of quality, even a few W2 class Melbourne trams were built their (By Holdens). F class dropcenters were quite stylish & a touch larger than other dropcenter trams in Australia. H class were a comfortable large interurban style tram & were sometimes run as a 3 car set (that's about as close to a train as you can get). H were the largest, most powerful of any of the vintage style trams & the lone H1 class is the largest rigid tram in Australia & looks a bit like a templete for Melbourne's Z class, may years later.
And if Melbourne having such a large tram network isn't interesting enough, they even sold one of their trams to SAVANNAH, GEORGIA in the US! Basically, streetcars first operated in Savannah in 1890 and were discontinued in 1946, however the city wanted to revive a streetcar line. Norfolk Southern (a freight railroad) had owned the River Street branch line for years and operated on it until 2003. The city purchased the River Street Branch line right-of-way from Norfolk Southern in 2004. Then they bought a 1930s W5-class from Melbourne for $207,000 and converted to power its motors with an onboard biodiesel-fueled generator and batteries as a hybrid drive for an additional 100K! The streetcar made its debut on December 9, 2008 during the Climate Action Parade. Regular operations began in February 2009. However, it didn't last long as service was quietly discontinued in 2015. The maintenance/storage facility for the streetcar was removed and so was the streetcar itself which is now in the Georgia State Railroad Museum (also in Savannah). The Savannah DOT finally addressed it on their website in 2017, basically saying that construction on the west end of River Street would interfere with the line, they examined several alternatives, but concluded that a "temporary" suspension of the service was the only viable choice. They then said they hope for a time they can restore the service.
Pyongyang is definitely not a place people think would have trams, but we do! We have a big tram network, using trams we made and Czechoslovak trams. The network has three main lines, and a smaller fourth one. The fourth one was created to connect the Pyongyang Metro station at Kim Il-sung University to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum of my father and grandpa. A Pyongyang Metro station was once at the palace’s site, but once it became a mausoleum in 1995, it became sacred ground and thus it was closed with the tram line built. Unlike the rest of the network, the tram that runs on this Kumsusan line uses a Swiss tram built in the late 40s that was retired from Zurich in 1994 where it was purchased by us the next year
the info seems very specific, and could be legit, but the user makes me doubt all of it, i assume you're a North Korean/ Korean in general that had family or moved south or to Australia before the Korean War, and have a lot of reverence for your family's old home and government, but maybe you're a bogan that read some Juche books and also likes trams however, just in case you are the Supreme Leader and have learned English very fluently, or have very good translators, i thank you for the knowledge of an interesting tram system in your country, and hope to see North Korea become open again.
I grew up in suburban Melbourne and moved over to Europe in my 20s because I had no love for the car centric city. No trams were near me and the nearest station was a 30 minute walk away. Buses were so scattered and infrequent that I catch more buses in one month now than I did in ten years in Melbourne. Plus all the government focus and spending in the 90s was pro car roads and freeways 😒 Another thing you didn’t emphasise is if all those tram users drove a car then they would also need a parking space at their destination. City land lost to parking is an atrocious waste of land and lost opportunity for business revenue or housing.
I grew up inner suburbs in the late 90s and 2000s. Despite all the noise, the last and current Labor regimes have done a lot to revitalise public transport. Metro and Vline trains are night and day different to even a decade ago. The outer suburbs are still a problem for the last few Ks but if you're wealthy or lucky enough to live in the inner or middle suburbs or near a train station public transport is pretty good. If the metro tunnel is completed then train capacity will nearly double and if the state finances get better it's likely that the outer suburban circle will be built which will form a giant ring road around most of Melbourne with a Doncaster line planned too. I didn't even start driving till I was 21 because even working night shifts there was still enough transport for me to get most of the way home, although I did have to walk about 30 to 40 minutes when the buses stopped.
Was it so bad in Doncaster? The long & convieninient overnight intertate expresses are gone as well. Despite the nuch higher population. Auatralian governments (all 300 zillion of them) hate trains.
Good for Melbourne with keeping their trams. I wish my city, London had done this. Instead we ripped up a large tram network.....and an even bigger trolleybus network..... replacing them all with dirty diesel buses belching out fumes. And also to accommodate the car obviously. I often imagine what central London would be like if trams returned. But sadly, I doubt they ever will. Great video btw. Never been to Melbourne, but really want to visit it. Looks like a great city.
i honestly want them to extend the trams into my suburb! as the trams end a few suburbs before mine. admittedly i don;' use trams often but i am a avid ptv user. and i reckon i would use trams more if i could easily access one in my area rather than using them sparingly in the city. i think having the train. bus and trams coexist allow for each to fil in the gaps the other modes leave behind making inner mlbourne very public transport friendly. but as you said it's the outer newer suburbs like mine they were farmland like 40 years ago that would really benefit having trams as another option to commit and connect to other places in Melbourne!
In March I spent a weekend in Melbourne attending the Formula 1 Grand Prix at Albert Park. The trams in the city were greatfully appreciated. The staff running them were extremely helpful and we were able to get to and from the city center to the venue with little trouble.
A wonderful analysis! I drove W class trams in the late 1970s, when the network was beginning to be expanded. Minor quibble: MMTB = Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board. While I have moved on to other careers I am very proud of my Electric Tram Drivers Certificate from the MMTB. When I was driving there was a little piece of cable tram track at the intersection of Bourke Street with Spencer. A pity that a stretch of cable tram track up Bourke St to the Exhibition Buildings and the Gertrude St Engine house could not be have been retrained. Loved the video of the journey up Collins street as well!
Watching this video and learning more history about trams and seeing a city I love from a different perspective has bought me so much joy. Usually I’ll walk, Uber or drive around the city of Melbourne when I am there as I do not like to take the train from my home town so I will usually drive to the city in my car and park it at my sisters home right by the cbd. Seeing the streets I walked on as a young person with my friends while I was in university and seeing landmarks I first saw as a young boy when my sister moved to Melbourne almost brought me to tears. Our city of Melbourne is beautiful and trams are most definitely an integral part of that beauty. My sister and her husband own a car but feel there is no need to use it unless they have to go a long way. They use the trams almost every day and they love it. They may use the car if it is pouring with rain but otherwise there is no need for it. Thankyou for this great video!
One story about Risson in 1965, the unions were unhappy about a tram driver who was electrocuted. After some union grumbling, Risson called a press conference at a tram depot where he himself demonstrated the correct method of replacing a pole on the roof of a tram. I saw a cutting of a newspaper with a photo of Risson wearing his hat on the roof of the tram. How many executives these days would get their hands dirty this way? I wondered if he was actually a qualified tram driver? It wouldn’t surprise me if he did drive trams to understand the system.
Toronto also kept its streetcars operating ones from the thirties until the 60s when new streetcars were built. Toronto also went through a period when there was pressure to replace them. It also went through a phase of large freeway building starting in the late 40s and ending in the 80s with expansion now limited to widening which resulted in the 401 being the second heaviest travelled highway in North America. Following the building of a subway in the fifties there was little major work done on public transit other than busses because with each change of government they wanted to make their own design with the result little got done although there was light rail which is simply another word for tram. Something had to be done with Toronto bypassing Chicago in size and is finally being taken seriously with multiple subways and light rail systems in work.
I plan to go back to NZ to visit friends in March but I would love to stop off in Melbourne for a few days & see the trams. As an ex train driver I would particularly like to see where they cross the railway lines. Any vintage tram running days would be a bonus too.
Adam this is fabulous. Your research is excellent and your commentary is spot on! More like this. Ps I am lucky enough to live in a part of Melbourne that has both trains and teams within walking distance.
I’m from Melbourne and given the conservative LNP pro-car governments at the time am surprised that the trams survived in spite of newspapers saying that other cities are “more progressive” and jumping up and down by the RACV. The politicians had under-estimated Robert Risson and had not considered replacing him with a bean counter in the early ‘60s. The big decision time was 1972 and I remember advertising inside the trams of a photo of a Z class tram with the heading “Trams Are Here To Stay”.
Thank the public transport gods that Melbourne didn't get rid of trams. Such a great way to get about. I just wish there were more out West where I live. Apparently there were, but some lines out here did get ripped up. Apparently there was a tram down Geelong Road/Princes Hwy
No there was never a tram line down Geelong Road/Princess Highway. The two lines that were taken up were the Barkley Street line which originally served all the factories along Barkley Street. The other line ran along Victoria Street and Somerville Road terminating at Williamstown Road Yarraville It was a single track with passing loops and the trams were single bogie trams. Both lines ceased operating due to declining patronage and increased private car usage
Thanks for the great video. The Melbourne tram network is truly excellent and thanks to one man named Robert Risson, the majority of the tram network remained, where other Australian cities scrapped their trams completely with disastrous results. I was born in Sydney and I saw the original trams running there until the entire system was scrapped in 1961. These days, Sydney has reintroduced trams as light rail modern vehicles, though it is only a small piece of the network that they had back in the 1940's and 1950's. I moved to Melbourne in 1981 and I have never regretted it for a minute. The public transport, including the trams works well and makes it quite easy to get from place to place.
The main tram loss in Melbourne was the two lines run by the Victorian Railways. The tram from St. Kilda station to Brighton Beach in 1959 and from Sandringham to Black Rock from 1956. The two MMTB lines removal was the Point Ormond line which ran from Elsternwick station to Pt Ormond , Elwood Beach along Glenhuntly rd , in 1960 and the Footscray local lines in 1962.
The VR tram lines were broad gauge "orphan" lines, which tend to be more expensive to maintain than lines and cars that are part of a large (standard gauge) system.
A bit over 20 years ago, I made it to Sydney but - unfortunately - did not get to Melbourne on that trip. As someone from the USA, I found Sydney's transit quite good so I am very impressed when you say that Melbourne's is better. You did leave out one city that still uses what you call trams. San Francisco may be famous for its cable cars but it also has streetcars (light rail), trolleys (electric buses), and motor coaches (buses). It's famously small and occasionally hilly but has maintained its streetcar system in spite of pressures from outside and inside the city. Added to the local network have been BART, a regional network of trains, and CalTrain. While some of the streetcar lines are below ground on Market Street, the F Line has historic streetcars from around the world and is a surface line because the public demanded it. It is an absolute joy to ride a car originally used in Milan or in Melbourne or in Blackpool or in Porto, to name a few of the cars from outside the USA.
In Boston we used to have streetcars but we call them tolleys which still run on the Ashmont Mattapan Line. What you call trolleys we call trackless trolleys and except for one section of the Silver Line are all gone now.
@@ane_world The cable cars (moved by underground cables) were a regular part of MUNI for such a long time. Before the great quake and fire of 1906, 4 cable car lines operated on Market Street. In the 1920s and 30s, the Ferry Building at the foot of Market was the second busiest transit terminal in the world, behind only a station in London. Recently, MUNI has decided to disallow transfers from the other parts of the system so they have become more of a tourist thing. Alas. My mother used to take a Market Street streetcar down to San Mateo in the summer to warm up in their park. Before her time, streetcars went all the way to San Jose. Today, MUNI serves only the City on Golden Hills itself. Here's an article that has a picture with the different types of transit available: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Railway
I remember being on a Brisbane tram. Queensland in the sixties was about destroying any rail - if possible. The South Coast railway line from Brisbane, branching to Southport and into NSW at Tweed Heads was ripped back to the Beenleigh line. Several regional lines were also closed before 2000. I would ask my father why there were ruins of railway track driving on our way to Gold Coast beachs. He said government ministers had shares in bus companies. Over 100 years ago, Queensland goverment offered to make the line crossing the state border - into NSW, standard gauge. This would have meant that some trains passing me in Logan City could have gone to Byron Bay - and even on to Sydney! Around 1962, mysterious fires in the Paddington tram depot destroyed a large portion of Brisbane trams. Buses were ready to replace them. This fire was used as an excuse to get rid of the 'antiquated' tram for 'modern' buses - that I would throw up on. I still can't stand the vibration of bus or 'road coach' engines. The last Brisbane trams were in 1969. Brisbane Labor Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, impressed with USA motorways thought everyone could drive! Counting children, older folk, people with disabilities and many others who can't drive, or shouldn't be doing so, about half of the population are forced to use buses - if they can, as Brisbane, once the world's fourth largest city in area, was sparce in rail coverage from the beginning. [Only two small branch lines have been added after about 2000. The Gold Coast line has stalled at Varsity Lakes station forover 12 years.] As a person now with disabilities, I moved from Logan to Northern Rivers in 1989, expecting a healthier life in a rural'regional area - that had railway services I could use to get to Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne - if I need to for medical, social or education needs etc. A student at SCU, Lismore, suggested Melbourne trams on the Murwillumbah line - when all major NSW political parties voted to close the line. Later all voting to destroy the line for 'rail trails' eventually. [The Greens failed to acknowledge that Bentley CSG mining may have been something to do with the closure originally.] Southern Cross University, Lismore would not allow me to enter for civil engineering - specialising in public transport, as staff had peculiary and hobby interests for long distance cycling. NSW governent planted SCU staff and local government managers in LGA councils that governments offered over $100million for rail trails - to thwart endeavours to keep rail, and silencing people with expertise in that area. 'By co-incidence', five people, humanitarian and with knowledge in rail, died too early, who would have been able to stop this sabotaging of rail.inthe region. John Kaye, in NSW Greens was an engineer with humanitarian interest in keeping rail in NR. Melbournian, Paul Mees, in his book, A Very Public Solution: Transport in the Disperced City, was another people dying with cancer, who equated the Northern Rivers as a 'disperced city'. His book talks of how competitive transport companies can't secure a reliable rail-based integrated transport system. He looked at systems around the world. He mentions how private bus companies in outer Melbourne suburbs weren't syncronised to outer suburb rail services. I loved going to Melbourne for trams, and how, at least till midnight, one could not just use radial rail transport into the CBD, but go directly from Abbotsford to St. Kilda by bus, and through much of the inner and middle suburbs by tram. Yes, Melbourne is pretty flat, and has a 'grid system' of roadways that facilitates trams, but many cities, like Brisbane had roadways meandering through suburbs to suit levels for trams, going into hilly areas. [The film, Malcolm, shows Lisbon, the Portuguese city, where trams can climb over 14 degree gradients into hilly suburbia.] Anti-rail, rail trail 'lobbyists' use the idea that people can just use buses instead of rail. If daytime rail services operated in the Northern Rivers and into Brisbane via Casino, I'd be able to go directly by rail from Lismore to Brisbane's UQ within 3 hours. From my town in NSW, to my mother's house in Logan, in 2.5 hours. Instead by three buses in NSW through the coast, and two trains via Varcity Lakes, it took me 7,5 hours. No longer can people in the western part of NR go to the beach or to Brisbane by rail for an afternoon and return home that night. Thousands of people are demied proper access to where they were once able to go by public transport. We die on the roads in NR. Males die 11 years fewer than males acccessing large city amenities, health etc. However, even new Logan City is treated with neglect like rural areas. Brisbane's coming 'Metro' is just articulated electric buses - pretending to be trams. Brisbane is getting rail tunnelling under the river. Gold Coast patronageof public transport has doubled since trams were installed. However, Logan with over 350,000 population is neglected; faster rail demolishes pensioner's houses for four tracks going though wetlands - for 'faster rail] between the Gold Coast and Brisbane - for the 2032 Olympic Games. If you Google public transport in Brusbane university civil engineering sites - you will get 'autonomous vehicles'. In the 1890s, electric and battery cars and trams existed. Rail sabotage began when oil gushed in Texas in 1901, and Henry T Ford mass-produced combustion engines in 1903. The whole world has stood still or gone backward in regard to rail modes of travel. Brisbane didn't have heavy rail electrified till 1979, although trams were electrified at the beginning of the 20th century. It's all about sociopaths making profits. The people are distracted by all the lockdowns, evforced medications and other industry there to make profits- not to benefit the people at all.
We Irish have only recently had the LUAS trams in Dublin - and here in Manchester U.K. we have had the Metrolink Trams for many years - But, I’d love to visit Melbourne one day, to see where Kylie Minogue grew up, as I’m a huge Kylie fan ❤️
I don't know the history of the rise of car transport and highways in Australia, but in the United States it was disastrous. Whole neighborhoods, typically low-income or majority Black American populations, were wiped out in order to run highways through them. It wiped out economic opportunity and prosperity to people who were least capable to recover from the loss, it divided communities and deprived them of achieving cohesiveness. The removal of public transportation such as trains, trams, and even trolleybus allowed whole cities to be ripe to be rebuilt around the car, and so many cities lost their unique characteristics.
I can not imagine Melbourne without its trams. It would be so dull, so uappealing. Though they urgently need to build new lines over to the western part of the city.
Thank you for a very informative show! As a visitor to Melbourne I enjoyed traveling in trams and especially the free circle tram. The highlight for me however was the restaurant tram and what an experience traveling on the tram circuit at night enjoying our dinner with an ever changing view. I would revisit Melbourne just for the tram experience! Thanx again for a very informative show!
Thankyou for a clear, and informative video. I grew up in Melbourne, and, although for the last 40 odd years, have resided in Queensland, I still return regularly to Melbourne. I always use a tram to get everywhere I need to go, and on the rare occasion, I might grab a train. Those red rattlers trains....I remember them so well, especially going to the footy, or a Moomba procession.
its interesting that where trams exsist, interesting shopping strips also exist. And as for "subsidies", the subsidy required for each car is significantly higher than public transport - just look at the complaints about toll roads where the capital cost of a road is recouped....
Love the video, Great content and clearly well researched. I think its worth mentioning that it was the SEC and the Victroian government that closed the Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat tram lines. Melbounre just happened to be stubborn to avoid the government hoping to close it.
The thumbnail reminds me of visiting Melbourne in 1984/5 when during a tram strike the old vehicles were jammed back to back from Swanston Street all the way across the river and along St. Kilda Road
Adelaide did keep one tram line the Glenelg line mainly because it was grade separated and it was from the CBD to the beach suburb of Glenelg so basically the equivalent of St Kilda more or less. We have since actually got the Tram line extended in the 21st century from Victoria Square to the Entertainment centre then later another extension to the eastern end of North TCE. We were almost close to having a big suburban expansion again but nope the Liberals got voted in and scrapped that, and the current Labor party that got back in has bugger all interest in public transport either so I am not sure if we will see that happen again. sadly so many inner suburbs need it as I cannot see a rail extension ever happening and a tram extension make the most sense.
"People would be out in their cars if the trams went". And that's exactly what happened on Sydney's North Shore when that area's trams went in 1958. The replacement bus service was woefully inadequate and unlike the trams, got stuck in the traffic jams at the approaches to and on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Insufficient buses were provided to replace the high-capacity trams, leaving many left behind at bus stops unable to get on a full bus. So a great many of them took to using their cars, and they have never gone back to public transport in that area.
since i moved to Melbourne 2 years ago trams have just become part of my daily life, i meet up with friends in the city by taking the tram, i Interchange with busses and trains from a tram, i go about my adventures by taking the tram. i can not imagine going back to living without riding a tram to get places.
This was fascinating, thanks for sharing. I would love to listen to more content like this in the future! I also appreciated the disclaimer about it being audio based, I got a bunch of cleaning done while listening.
Reminds me of Toronto - trams were kept there for their efficiency as well, and by the time the TTC was ready to replace the trams/streetcars in 1972, public support for the network saved it.
"Communist East elected to keep" - that's a generous overstatement. The East wasn't uniform, it was inconsistent, and when they decided to remove the tram, it was done at much slower pace. In the 1940s-1960s Moscow axed hundreds of kilometers of tram lines, but hundreds more remained, etc. Chișinău tram was closed in 1961, Chernivtsi tram in 1967 etc.
Over the past few months, ive been adoring finding people covering topics from morticians to mathematicians that coveing topics I've already learnt about with an aussie perspective. We're very much influsenced by the us, but we're not the same. And hearing "its like x", "here its x" yadda yadda. And sometimes i forget that im not in the same place as them. Aussies, i feel, get more international imformation. Here its aus focused, but the maths one was talking about india and china etc. Its so refreshing. Actually being reminded that other places have other rules and culture
Although Melbourne transitioned from horse trams -> cable cars -> electric trams, Sydney did it differently. There was a short-lived horse tram line in 1861 but the bulk of the System started off in 1879 with steam trams, which were actually true light rail trains, being a loco hauling three passenger cars. Most steam sets were replaced by electric trams except for the Kogarah-Sans Souci steam trams (replaced in 1937 by trolleybuses) and the Cronulla steam trams closed in 1930 but not replaced by the present train service until 1939. The last Parramatta steam trams ran in 1943 and were not replaced by anything. Sydney and Newcastle had some oddities, such as the Maitland-Morpeth Branch rail line operated by trams for 20 years (closed in 1953), and the Camden tramline operated by trains (closed in 1962).
Sounds a bit like the situation here in theUK, where tram systems gradually shut down. London finished in 1952; it would have been earlier if the Second World War hadn’t happened. The last city to lose its trams was Glasgow, in 1962. That left just one system operating, Blackpool in Lancashire, where several lines closed, but one remained, running along the coast to Fleetwood. Again, there was one man who strongly supported retaining the trams. He introduced new trams in the 1930#, some of which remained in regular use until a few years ago, along with some of more recent vintage. In the last decade the system has been modernised, with much of thetrack and overhead equipment replaced and a fleet of new modern trams introduced. A short extension to the system to server the town’s main railway station has need built but I’m not sure if it has actually opened yet. c In recent times new tram systems have opened in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Croydon in South London, Nottingham and Edinburgh.
No, it is strange that many crowded urban areas in the world don’t have trans. In fact cities such as Mumbai, instead of expanding tram network, eliminated trams. Trams are safe, comfortable and quick, cost effective & environmentally friendly transport.
I lived in Melbourne for two years, and rode the trams daily. The fact the city kept its trams - and has the largest network of any city in the world - is truly outstanding. Particularly when one considers the woeful public transportation status in most car-dependent "New World" cities. However, a contrary note of caution: The massive suburbanization of the city over the last few decades, with the eastern suburbs in particular extending vast distances, is not at all conducive to a car-free society. As cities there continue to grow in size (particularly Melbourne and Sydney, but Brisbane also increasing in population rapidly), the Australian dream of everyone owning their own single storey suburban unit really needs to be revisited. Despite may great things about Melbourne, it suffers from a severe lack of medium density districts of the type one may see so widely in European and Northeast Asian cities (where - surprise surprise - public transportation utilisation is also the highest). In many ways Melbourne's urban design is identical to so many of its contemporaries in the United States, Canada and elsewhere in Australia: A commercially-focused CBD with tall skyscrapers, then dropping off totally to single storey units stretching to suburban infinity. Apartment living doesn't have to mean living in a box in the sky. A city like Barcelona shows what can be done with effective medium density.
Excellent piece. I'm not Australian, but this was so interesting all the same. I do hope you'll make more of this style, or that maybe you have a podcast? Your voices work really well together. Having said that, I actually quite enjoyed the video footage.
Interesting video, even though I know little of Melbourne. I observe that a major obstacles to tram/light rail is the high standard of track work and hence huge cost. Does Melbourne have good methods for laying track less expensively? Here in Bordeaux, the cost of laying superb foundations and relocating underground services make extensions very slow and I imagine expensive. I suspect that earlier tram lines were built less expensively and also easier to change. Perhaps Melbourne wide roads help, and perhaps ground conditions allow simple track foundations.
There were still protests on replacing electric trains on the St Kilda and Port Melbourne with trams, light rail was called a “lie trail”. A statement I read by the public transport department (true or not) wss that patronage on the Box Hill lines carried more passengers an hour compared to what the St Kilda and or Port Melbourne lines carried in a day. (Iforget if it was both St Kilda/Port Melbourne lines). The tram lines run a slightly different rout so I don’t know if these heavy rail services could be improved with 2023 thinking. Towards the end, Harris trains were modified into pseudo Commeng trains with heating and air-con and run on the St. Kilda and Sandringham lines.
Port Melbourne and St Kilda are a lot shorter than the Mont Albert tram. ( Box hill didn't have a tram at that time). Meaning if you serve fewer people you get less patronage. That is easy. But because St Kilda and Port Melbourne were largely grade separated they were an example of how all transport should be done. Along with lines to Camberwell and a lot of the Outer circle railway amongst others. I lived in South Melbourne and the thing we all appreciated is that it was much faster to go by train than by tram and it dropped us off at Flinders Street. In the "centre" of the city as it was. Light rail permits vehicles to go on the road. But that is a double edged sword.
This was before Melbourne became super crowded 😅🤣 I have lived in Melbourne for 16 years now & i love the transportation, especially trains 🚉 and trams🚊🤗 but let's be honest, this video 📹 is quite a bit old. at least 10 or 11 years old. I watched the entire video and trust me, i can't remember the last time I saw Melbourne Street that empty. those yellow taxis 🚕 were no longer famous after facing major problems & the city is no longer what you see right now in the video, the city is now massively upgraded.
No. not strange at all. Brisbane and Sydney both had trams. They got a transport consultant from Los Angeles and the first thing he did was shut down both Sydney’s and Brisbanes trams. Then he planned massive freeways. You can see the freeway remnants at Sydney’s Darling Harbour. in Brisbane there is the freeway built as an immense bridge over the Brisbane river. it was criminal that the trams were destroyed in the Capital cities. Not sure how Melbourne escaped the carnage.
That intro thumbnail with "weird" on it with all those W8 class trams parked together gave me flashbacks to our once major tram strike that happened in 1990 here...We may have our trams but we don't have our "woodies" anymore and our current tram fleet isn't nearly diverse nor interesting as it once was some 33 years ago...
Excellent film and commentary. What the progress of this tram through central Melbourne shows is the lack of tram priority at road junctions. Too often the tram has to wait at signals while cars get priority on the intersecting road. The journey speeds are too low as a result. Trams should stop at their stops just long enough for passengers to get on and off. As we can see, too often the tram is held at the tram stop (just before the signals) for 1-2 minutes. More people would use the trams, and fewer would use cars, if these signalled junctions were to give trams priority (except where a tram on the intersecting road is crossing, as can be seen once or twice in this film). One clip shows someone in a black car doing a 'hook turn' at a signalled junction (a unique manoeuve permitted only in Melbourne) in front of the tram.
Great episode. But there in fact was a major protest movement in Melbourne that won the protection of our trams, and the left who fought for it did include many communists, socialists, marxists and anarchists. These included many people who had experienced the power of collection action from their experiences in their unions, where they won the rights we all take for granted today. They took the fight to the streets to save what we all know and love to this day, melbourne's trams.
Interesting video , I don’t really have the love for trams and public transport that some people do , i guess they are a necessary thing though , I used to use the old w class to go to school back in the early 70’s, and occasionally to go into Melbourne shops in my younger days with dear old mum , drafty , stinky ( you could smell the brakes) , noisy , slow , at times crowded . At least on the old W class , I think there where more seats on them , a lot of the modern trams standing room is more prioritised it seems so they can cram more people in like sardines. Give me a car any day . I think mentioned was the capacity of trams to take people away from the footy😂, I wonder how many people in the comments have ever riden on one of these things when they are absolutely packed😊? Just not a fun ride , and if you have been anywhere near a footy oval or especially the MCG at the end of the game , it is absolutely pandemonium , and jolimont station is on another level of craziness at those times , especially at grand final day. Imagine the MCG at finish time with anything from 80,000 to over 100,000 people spilling out , at one stage a concert was staged there with a record 140,000 +people 😂 , yeah let’s get on a tram or train😊.
*The highest of praise to you both for your efforts in producing this video! This is **_SO, SO MUCH BETTER_** than I expected!* Your research shows in your commentary, and even I, as a lifelong tramway enthusiast, and one that considers Melbourne's tramway his _"playground,"_ I have learnt something! I never knew there had been a planned tramline to Chadstone! 🤯 I knew well of Sir Robert Risson, and how he (basically) saved the Melbourne tramways from extinction, but not a lot else. I also knew of the 1980 plan to get rid of trams in Melbourne (Do you have any links to this information?), along with the closure of the St Kilda (and Port Melbourne) rail lines, which only being a little kid (from interstate) at the time, I never got to ride. A final note on Sir Robert Risson - he successfully argued to save Melbourne's trams for the (then) upcoming 1956 Olympics, arguing that it was "a relatively modern tramway system." Sydney was largely gone by 1958, with the final nail in the coffin being 25/2/1961 with the closure of the last two line - that of La Perouse and Maroubra Beach. Broken Hill was all steam powered, and had closed (AIRC) in 1927. A few landmarks remain today, but not much else.
I grew up in greater Boston and I wish that city kept all its trolleys (they're like trams but collect their power with a single trolley pole instead of a pantograph). Boston would have the most extensive tram network today instead of the sorry remnant that still exists called the Green Line which they did add to, once in the 50s and again in the past few years, and another remnant called the Ashmont Mattapan Line which still runs streetcar type trolleys while the Green Line runs LRVs which are trams but we call trolleys! Go figure.
As a Melburnian, i've been amused to see trams being put back in Sydney, Adelaide (cute little ones!), Dublin and Edinburgh. They almost seem like a status symbol now. George Street in Sydney used to be a dead traffic sewer, but now with trams and pedestrians only, it's full of life, the change is amazing. Of course Sydney knocked down a perfectly good tram depot for that opera house thing 😆. We should put up a statue to Risson.
No, most cities do have trams! its quiet rare to have a bigger city (~150k+) without a tram network here in Germany, Austria and probably Netherlands, France, Czechia, etc... Only the english speaking countries have destroyed there tram networks
To me.. the problem started when the government took over the running of trams in the first place... whilst sometimes government needs to get involved, the best networks (I am thinking of Japan here) are ones still run as private profitable competitive services with a large handsome city subsidy in recognition of their public importance... these are the kind of tram systems that not only maintain good rolling stock, but actually will expand buying up land (with the help of prefectural committees) to resell it to high-density developers around new stations, and linking pre-existing suburbs into the sprawl of a beautiful attractive network.
![Felix "Unfair" | [Stray Kids : SKZ-PLAYER]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/Oswujxm2Ag0/mqdefault.jpg)
I am now 72 and I grew up in Brisbane. I traveled every day to my apprentice job in Fortitude Valley on a tram for sixpence, recently changed to 5 cents, but it was still sixpence to me. It was a lot since I my pay was only $13.85 a week in 1966 and train fares took a big chunk of that too. Brisbane also had trolley busses, electrically driven busses that had to stay under the overhead wires to stay connected, but moved around in the traffic like any other bus. I worked opposite the Light Street Tram Depot, and witnessed the gradual decline of the trams as they were neglected and allowed to become serviceable to justify their removal in 1969. The council also wanted the large and valuable real estate that tram depot was taking up which was out of town when built, but by the 60s was in the city. People also complained about the ugly web or overhead wires throughout the city and were actually happy to see the trams go. In addition, the traffic in the lane next to the tramlines had to stop whenever the tram stopped to ensure people getting off the trams were not run over. In hindsight it was a bad move and should have been improved rather than removed, but at the time, most people were happy about the change and giving more freedom to the increasing number of cars in post war Australia. As a sweetener, the unions ensured that all the employees of the tram service were reemployed in the bus infrastructure that replaced the trams.
brisbane came up a lot in my research, because Robert Risson was from Brisbane and ran the tram board there. It's such a shame that Brisbane didn't keep there network as well. There was a fire in the tram depot in the 60s that destroyed around a fifth of the tram fleet, and I think that was the final nail in the coffin.
@@ane_world Arson is a hell of a drug. =/
@@ane_world Yes I work where the tram depot was. Believe it or not but there is rumours that it was arson.
My decision to leave Brisbane forever was based in part on the "accidental" fire that destroyed the teams, and the late night bulldozing of the Bellevue hotel. After 45 years in the Canberra area, NOTHING - including a new ice age - would induceme to return to Queensland.
@@jaydentownsend5402 It's how they get rid of stuff in Brisbane - TWO fires in the old part of the Chermside shopping centre, both on the night before the opening of the new part????
I’m 22 and from Adelaide. I wish I could have experienced the tram network here at its prime. I regularly holiday in Melb and the trains and trams work so incredibly well together.
Awesome video. Well done🙌🏼👏🏼
I love the old Melbourne trams
Adelaide had a reputation for building large trams & busses of quality, even a few W2 class Melbourne trams were built their (By Holdens). F class dropcenters were quite stylish & a touch larger than other dropcenter trams in Australia. H class were a comfortable large interurban style tram & were sometimes run as a 3 car set (that's about as close to a train as you can get). H were the largest, most powerful of any of the vintage style trams & the lone H1 class is the largest rigid tram in Australia & looks a bit like a templete for Melbourne's Z class, may years later.
And if Melbourne having such a large tram network isn't interesting enough, they even sold one of their trams to SAVANNAH, GEORGIA in the US! Basically, streetcars first operated in Savannah in 1890 and were discontinued in 1946, however the city wanted to revive a streetcar line. Norfolk Southern (a freight railroad) had owned the River Street branch line for years and operated on it until 2003. The city purchased the River Street Branch line right-of-way from Norfolk Southern in 2004. Then they bought a 1930s W5-class from Melbourne for $207,000 and converted to power its motors with an onboard biodiesel-fueled generator and batteries as a hybrid drive for an additional 100K!
The streetcar made its debut on December 9, 2008 during the Climate Action Parade. Regular operations began in February 2009. However, it didn't last long as service was quietly discontinued in 2015. The maintenance/storage facility for the streetcar was removed and so was the streetcar itself which is now in the Georgia State Railroad Museum (also in Savannah). The Savannah DOT finally addressed it on their website in 2017, basically saying that construction on the west end of River Street would interfere with the line, they examined several alternatives, but concluded that a "temporary" suspension of the service was the only viable choice. They then said they hope for a time they can restore the service.
Why are you everywhere in RUclips comments
Pyongyang is definitely not a place people think would have trams, but we do! We have a big tram network, using trams we made and Czechoslovak trams. The network has three main lines, and a smaller fourth one. The fourth one was created to connect the Pyongyang Metro station at Kim Il-sung University to the Kumsusan Palace of the Sun, the mausoleum of my father and grandpa. A Pyongyang Metro station was once at the palace’s site, but once it became a mausoleum in 1995, it became sacred ground and thus it was closed with the tram line built. Unlike the rest of the network, the tram that runs on this Kumsusan line uses a Swiss tram built in the late 40s that was retired from Zurich in 1994 where it was purchased by us the next year
Thanks for the instruction, Dear Leader.
If only people had enough food to be able ride the Great Leaders trams.
the info seems very specific, and could be legit, but the user makes me doubt all of it, i assume you're a North Korean/ Korean in general that had family or moved south or to Australia before the Korean War, and have a lot of reverence for your family's old home and government, but maybe you're a bogan that read some Juche books and also likes trams
however, just in case you are the Supreme Leader and have learned English very fluently, or have very good translators, i thank you for the knowledge of an interesting tram system in your country, and hope to see North Korea become open again.
North Korea, best Korea.
Bruh I already know
I grew up in suburban Melbourne and moved over to Europe in my 20s because I had no love for the car centric city. No trams were near me and the nearest station was a 30 minute walk away. Buses were so scattered and infrequent that I catch more buses in one month now than I did in ten years in Melbourne. Plus all the government focus and spending in the 90s was pro car roads and freeways 😒
Another thing you didn’t emphasise is if all those tram users drove a car then they would also need a parking space at their destination. City land lost to parking is an atrocious waste of land and lost opportunity for business revenue or housing.
I grew up inner suburbs in the late 90s and 2000s. Despite all the noise, the last and current Labor regimes have done a lot to revitalise public transport. Metro and Vline trains are night and day different to even a decade ago. The outer suburbs are still a problem for the last few Ks but if you're wealthy or lucky enough to live in the inner or middle suburbs or near a train station public transport is pretty good.
If the metro tunnel is completed then train capacity will nearly double and if the state finances get better it's likely that the outer suburban circle will be built which will form a giant ring road around most of Melbourne with a Doncaster line planned too.
I didn't even start driving till I was 21 because even working night shifts there was still enough transport for me to get most of the way home, although I did have to walk about 30 to 40 minutes when the buses stopped.
But yeah much of the damage done in the 90s is still to be undone.
Boston Mass . has the green line but it’s nowhere as big as Melbourne’s tram network.
Was it so bad in Doncaster?
The long & convieninient overnight intertate expresses are gone as well. Despite the nuch higher population.
Auatralian governments (all 300 zillion of them) hate trains.
i feel very welcomed with the opening of the video being on my local tram :D
I am rapidly approaching your location at 50000 kmh
Good for Melbourne with keeping their trams. I wish my city, London had done this. Instead we ripped up a large tram network.....and an even bigger trolleybus network..... replacing them all with dirty diesel buses belching out fumes. And also to accommodate the car obviously.
I often imagine what central London would be like if trams returned. But sadly, I doubt they ever will.
Great video btw. Never been to Melbourne, but really want to visit it. Looks like a great city.
It is im from melbourne you will love it ❤
i honestly want them to extend the trams into my suburb! as the trams end a few suburbs before mine. admittedly i don;' use trams often but i am a avid ptv user. and i reckon i would use trams more if i could easily access one in my area rather than using them sparingly in the city. i think having the train. bus and trams coexist allow for each to fil in the gaps the other modes leave behind making inner mlbourne very public transport friendly. but as you said it's the outer newer suburbs like mine they were farmland like 40 years ago that would really benefit having trams as another option to commit and connect to other places in Melbourne!
In March I spent a weekend in Melbourne attending the Formula 1 Grand Prix at Albert Park. The trams in the city were greatfully appreciated. The staff running them were extremely helpful and we were able to get to and from the city center to the venue with little trouble.
A wonderful analysis! I drove W class trams in the late 1970s, when the network was beginning to be expanded. Minor quibble: MMTB = Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board. While I have moved on to other careers I am very proud of my Electric Tram Drivers Certificate from the MMTB. When I was driving there was a little piece of cable tram track at the intersection of Bourke Street with Spencer. A pity that a stretch of cable tram track up Bourke St to the Exhibition Buildings and the Gertrude St Engine house could not be have been retrained. Loved the video of the journey up Collins street as well!
Great story , I love the Melbourne trams I wish we had them still in Auckland NZ.
I moved from Wellington when trams were taken away...two weeks after,I moved to Melbourne...still living here.
Watching this video and learning more history about trams and seeing a city I love from a different perspective has bought me so much joy. Usually I’ll walk, Uber or drive around the city of Melbourne when I am there as I do not like to take the train from my home town so I will usually drive to the city in my car and park it at my sisters home right by the cbd.
Seeing the streets I walked on as a young person with my friends while I was in university and seeing landmarks I first saw as a young boy when my sister moved to Melbourne almost brought me to tears.
Our city of Melbourne is beautiful and trams are most definitely an integral part of that beauty. My sister and her husband own a car but feel there is no need to use it unless they have to go a long way. They use the trams almost every day and they love it. They may use the car if it is pouring with rain but otherwise there is no need for it.
Thankyou for this great video!
More please 🥺
You two make a great duo and with the music makes an amazing experience. A proper radio style documentary
The music occasionally *drowns out* the commentary. It needs to be attenuated.
Wow, what a lovely video/story. You reached all across the world to Antwerp Belgium. We love our trams here too!
One story about Risson in 1965, the unions were unhappy about a tram driver who was electrocuted. After some union grumbling, Risson called a press conference at a tram depot where he himself demonstrated the correct method of replacing a pole on the roof of a tram. I saw a cutting of a newspaper with a photo of Risson wearing his hat on the roof of the tram.
How many executives these days would get their hands dirty this way? I wondered if he was actually a qualified tram driver? It wouldn’t surprise me if he did drive trams to understand the system.
Toronto also kept its streetcars operating ones from the thirties until the 60s when new streetcars were built. Toronto also went through a period when there was pressure to replace them. It also went through a phase of large freeway building starting in the late 40s and ending in the 80s with expansion now limited to widening which resulted in the 401 being the second heaviest travelled highway in North America. Following the building of a subway in the fifties there was little major work done on public transit other than busses because with each change of government they wanted to make their own design with the result little got done although there was light rail which is simply another word for tram. Something had to be done with Toronto bypassing Chicago in size and is finally being taken seriously with multiple subways and light rail systems in work.
Thankyou so much for an amazing video. The fight for public transport still continues.... ❤️
I plan to go back to NZ to visit friends in March but I would love to stop off in Melbourne for a few days & see the trams. As an ex train driver I would particularly like to see where they cross the railway lines. Any vintage tram running days would be a bonus too.
Adam this is fabulous. Your research is excellent and your commentary is spot on! More like this. Ps I am lucky enough to live in a part of Melbourne that has both trains and teams within walking distance.
As a Melbournian, it's not strange that we have trams
it is compared to other australian cities (especially in terms of size) it was against the trends of the time
I’m from Melbourne and given the conservative LNP pro-car governments at the time am surprised that the trams survived in spite of newspapers saying that other cities are “more progressive” and jumping up and down by the RACV. The politicians had under-estimated Robert Risson and had not considered replacing him with a bean counter in the early ‘60s.
The big decision time was 1972 and I remember advertising inside the trams of a photo of a Z class tram with the heading “Trams Are Here To Stay”.
Made with love, care and honesty. Great effort 😊! 19:41
What an absolute delight to listen to this fantastic programme. Thank you, such a lovely presentation. And superb audio quality and effects
Thank the public transport gods that Melbourne didn't get rid of trams. Such a great way to get about. I just wish there were more out West where I live. Apparently there were, but some lines out here did get ripped up. Apparently there was a tram down Geelong Road/Princes Hwy
No there was never a tram line down Geelong Road/Princess Highway. The two lines that were taken up were the Barkley Street line which originally served all the factories along Barkley Street. The other line ran along Victoria Street and Somerville Road terminating at Williamstown Road Yarraville It was a single track with passing loops and the trams were single bogie trams. Both lines ceased operating due to declining patronage and increased private car usage
Love it! Great work. Makes me miss Melbourne even more now.
And I feel the 99 Percent Invisible-ness of the vibe here.
Thanks for the great video. The Melbourne tram network is truly excellent and thanks to one man named Robert Risson, the majority of the tram network remained, where other Australian cities scrapped their trams completely with disastrous results. I was born in Sydney and I saw the original trams running there until the entire system was scrapped in 1961. These days, Sydney has reintroduced trams as light rail modern vehicles, though it is only a small piece of the network that they had back in the 1940's and 1950's. I moved to Melbourne in 1981 and I have never regretted it for a minute. The public transport, including the trams works well and makes it quite easy to get from place to place.
The main tram loss in Melbourne was the two lines run by the Victorian Railways. The tram from St. Kilda station to Brighton Beach in 1959 and from Sandringham to Black Rock from 1956. The two MMTB lines removal was the Point Ormond line which ran from Elsternwick station to Pt Ormond , Elwood Beach along Glenhuntly rd , in 1960 and the Footscray local lines in 1962.
The VR tram lines were broad gauge "orphan" lines, which tend to be more expensive to maintain than lines and cars that are part of a large (standard gauge) system.
How do you not even have 100 subscribers? This channel needs more attention
A bit over 20 years ago, I made it to Sydney but - unfortunately - did not get to Melbourne on that trip. As someone from the USA, I found Sydney's transit quite good so I am very impressed when you say that Melbourne's is better.
You did leave out one city that still uses what you call trams. San Francisco may be famous for its cable cars but it also has streetcars (light rail), trolleys (electric buses), and motor coaches (buses). It's famously small and occasionally hilly but has maintained its streetcar system in spite of pressures from outside and inside the city. Added to the local network have been BART, a regional network of trains, and CalTrain. While some of the streetcar lines are below ground on Market Street, the F Line has historic streetcars from around the world and is a surface line because the public demanded it. It is an absolute joy to ride a car originally used in Milan or in Melbourne or in Blackpool or in Porto, to name a few of the cars from outside the USA.
In Boston we used to have streetcars but we call them tolleys which still run on the Ashmont Mattapan Line. What you call trolleys we call trackless trolleys and except for one section of the Silver Line are all gone now.
of course! I always assumed that the cable cars were more of a tourist thing. I had no idea they had a light rail system as well
@@ane_world The cable cars (moved by underground cables) were a regular part of MUNI for such a long time. Before the great quake and fire of 1906, 4 cable car lines operated on Market Street. In the 1920s and 30s, the Ferry Building at the foot of Market was the second busiest transit terminal in the world, behind only a station in London. Recently, MUNI has decided to disallow transfers from the other parts of the system so they have become more of a tourist thing. Alas.
My mother used to take a Market Street streetcar down to San Mateo in the summer to warm up in their park. Before her time, streetcars went all the way to San Jose. Today, MUNI serves only the City on Golden Hills itself. Here's an article that has a picture with the different types of transit available: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/San_Francisco_Municipal_Railway
Not sure how I stumbled upon this, but this is really impressive. I loved listening to this. What a great little doco
The very fact that I’m meant to wipe the table, but instead just gone down a RUclips rabbit hole, makes the audio only nature of this content useful
this is actually super well produced, so cool
Pirate buses?! That image made me laugh so much, thank you.
I remember being on a Brisbane tram.
Queensland in the sixties was about destroying any rail - if possible. The South Coast railway line from Brisbane, branching to Southport and into NSW at Tweed Heads was ripped back to the Beenleigh line. Several regional lines were also closed before 2000.
I would ask my father why there were ruins of railway track driving on our way to Gold Coast beachs. He said government ministers had shares in bus companies. Over 100 years ago, Queensland goverment offered to make the line crossing the state border - into NSW, standard gauge. This would have meant that some trains passing me in Logan City could have gone to Byron Bay - and even on to Sydney!
Around 1962, mysterious fires in the Paddington tram depot destroyed a large portion of Brisbane trams. Buses were ready to replace them. This fire was used as an excuse to get rid of the 'antiquated' tram for 'modern' buses - that I would throw up on. I still can't stand the vibration of bus or 'road coach' engines. The last Brisbane trams were in 1969.
Brisbane Labor Lord Mayor, Clem Jones, impressed with USA motorways thought everyone could drive! Counting children, older folk, people with disabilities and many others who can't drive, or shouldn't be doing so, about half of the population are forced to use buses - if they can, as Brisbane, once the world's fourth largest city in area, was sparce in rail coverage from the beginning. [Only two small branch lines have been added after about 2000. The Gold Coast line has stalled at Varsity Lakes station forover 12 years.]
As a person now with disabilities, I moved from Logan to Northern Rivers in 1989, expecting a healthier life in a rural'regional area - that had railway services I could use to get to Brisbane, Sydney or Melbourne - if I need to for medical, social or education needs etc. A student at SCU, Lismore, suggested Melbourne trams on the Murwillumbah line - when all major NSW political parties voted to close the line. Later all voting to destroy the line for 'rail trails' eventually. [The Greens failed to acknowledge that Bentley CSG mining may have been something to do with the closure originally.]
Southern Cross University, Lismore would not allow me to enter for civil engineering - specialising in public transport, as staff had peculiary and hobby interests for long distance cycling. NSW governent planted SCU staff and local government managers in LGA councils that governments offered over $100million for rail trails - to thwart endeavours to keep rail, and silencing people with expertise in that area.
'By co-incidence', five people, humanitarian and with knowledge in rail, died too early, who would have been able to stop this sabotaging of rail.inthe region. John Kaye, in NSW Greens was an engineer with humanitarian interest in keeping rail in NR. Melbournian, Paul Mees, in his book, A Very Public Solution: Transport in the Disperced City, was another people dying with cancer, who equated the Northern Rivers as a 'disperced city'. His book talks of how competitive transport companies can't secure a reliable rail-based integrated transport system. He looked at systems around the world. He mentions how private bus companies in outer Melbourne suburbs weren't syncronised to outer suburb rail services.
I loved going to Melbourne for trams, and how, at least till midnight, one could not just use radial rail transport into the CBD, but go directly from Abbotsford to St. Kilda by bus, and through much of the inner and middle suburbs by tram.
Yes, Melbourne is pretty flat, and has a 'grid system' of roadways that facilitates trams, but many cities, like Brisbane had roadways meandering through suburbs to suit levels for trams, going into hilly areas. [The film, Malcolm, shows Lisbon, the Portuguese city, where trams can climb over 14 degree gradients into hilly suburbia.]
Anti-rail, rail trail 'lobbyists' use the idea that people can just use buses instead of rail. If daytime rail services operated in the Northern Rivers and into Brisbane via Casino, I'd be able to go directly by rail from Lismore to Brisbane's UQ within 3 hours. From my town in NSW, to my mother's house in Logan, in 2.5 hours. Instead by three buses in NSW through the coast, and two trains via Varcity Lakes, it took me 7,5 hours. No longer can people in the western part of NR go to the beach or to Brisbane by rail for an afternoon and return home that night. Thousands of people are demied proper access to where they were once able to go by public transport.
We die on the roads in NR. Males die 11 years fewer than males acccessing large city amenities, health etc.
However, even new Logan City is treated with neglect like rural areas. Brisbane's coming 'Metro' is just articulated electric buses - pretending to be trams. Brisbane is getting rail tunnelling under the river. Gold Coast patronageof public transport has doubled since trams were installed. However, Logan with over 350,000 population is neglected; faster rail demolishes pensioner's houses for four tracks going though wetlands - for 'faster rail] between the Gold Coast and Brisbane - for the 2032 Olympic Games.
If you Google public transport in Brusbane university civil engineering sites - you will get 'autonomous vehicles'.
In the 1890s, electric and battery cars and trams existed. Rail sabotage began when oil gushed in Texas in 1901, and Henry T Ford mass-produced combustion engines in 1903. The whole world has stood still or gone backward in regard to rail modes of travel.
Brisbane didn't have heavy rail electrified till 1979, although trams were electrified at the beginning of the 20th century.
It's all about sociopaths making profits. The people are distracted by all the lockdowns, evforced medications and other industry there to make profits- not to benefit the people at all.
We Irish have only recently had the LUAS trams in Dublin - and here in Manchester U.K. we have had the Metrolink Trams for many years - But, I’d love to visit Melbourne one day, to see where Kylie Minogue grew up, as I’m a huge Kylie fan ❤️
Walking, running, bicycles, escooters, green open spaces, electric buses and trams are all parts of a good transportation system
I don't know the history of the rise of car transport and highways in Australia, but in the United States it was disastrous. Whole neighborhoods, typically low-income or majority Black American populations, were wiped out in order to run highways through them. It wiped out economic opportunity and prosperity to people who were least capable to recover from the loss, it divided communities and deprived them of achieving cohesiveness. The removal of public transportation such as trains, trams, and even trolleybus allowed whole cities to be ripe to be rebuilt around the car, and so many cities lost their unique characteristics.
I can not imagine Melbourne without its trams. It would be so dull, so uappealing. Though they urgently need to build new lines over to the western part of the city.
Thank you for a very informative show! As a visitor to Melbourne I enjoyed traveling in trams and especially the free circle tram. The highlight for me however was the restaurant tram and what an experience traveling on the tram circuit at night enjoying our dinner with an ever changing view. I would revisit Melbourne just for the tram experience! Thanx again for a very informative show!
It's so sad how there was a time when trams were thought a thing of the past while it's the future.
Thankyou for a clear, and informative video. I grew up in Melbourne, and, although for the last 40 odd years, have resided in Queensland, I still return regularly to Melbourne. I always use a tram to get everywhere I need to go, and on the rare occasion, I might grab a train.
Those red rattlers trains....I remember them so well, especially going to the footy, or a Moomba procession.
I don't want to imagine Melbourne without trams!
its interesting that where trams exsist, interesting shopping strips also exist. And as for "subsidies", the subsidy required for each car is significantly higher than public transport - just look at the complaints about toll roads where the capital cost of a road is recouped....
Love the video, Great content and clearly well researched.
I think its worth mentioning that it was the SEC and the Victroian government that closed the Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat tram lines. Melbounre just happened to be stubborn to avoid the government hoping to close it.
One person kept it going, Henry Bolte the Premier. Henry did not like buses as he saw them as dirty.
The thumbnail reminds me of visiting Melbourne in 1984/5 when during a tram strike the old vehicles were jammed back to back from Swanston Street all the way across the river and along St. Kilda Road
Adelaide did keep one tram line the Glenelg line mainly because it was grade separated and it was from the CBD to the beach suburb of Glenelg so basically the equivalent of St Kilda more or less.
We have since actually got the Tram line extended in the 21st century from Victoria Square to the Entertainment centre then later another extension to the eastern end of North TCE.
We were almost close to having a big suburban expansion again but nope the Liberals got voted in and scrapped that, and the current Labor party that got back in has bugger all interest in public transport either so I am not sure if we will see that happen again. sadly so many inner suburbs need it as I cannot see a rail extension ever happening and a tram extension make the most sense.
I’m glad this hit my feed, it was an amazing listen❤
"People would be out in their cars if the trams went". And that's exactly what happened on Sydney's North Shore when that area's trams went in 1958. The replacement bus service was woefully inadequate and unlike the trams, got stuck in the traffic jams at the approaches to and on the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Insufficient buses were provided to replace the high-capacity trams, leaving many left behind at bus stops unable to get on a full bus. So a great many of them took to using their cars, and they have never gone back to public transport in that area.
since i moved to Melbourne 2 years ago trams have just become part of my daily life, i meet up with friends in the city by taking the tram, i Interchange with busses and trains from a tram, i go about my adventures by taking the tram. i can not imagine going back to living without riding a tram to get places.
Fantastic listen, thank you so much for putting out such a fascinating video.
Real 99p.i. vibes from this. I really enjoyed this, especially as a smug, self-congratulatory Melbournian.
Oooh 😊 what a great video (?)
Have you considered making a podcast for things like this? I could listen for hours
Loved the video too, great choice. More please...
This was fascinating, thanks for sharing. I would love to listen to more content like this in the future!
I also appreciated the disclaimer about it being audio based, I got a bunch of cleaning done while listening.
Who would imagine that Melbourne holding up to its “ past” would be eying the future?!
Reminds me of Toronto - trams were kept there for their efficiency as well, and by the time the TTC was ready to replace the trams/streetcars in 1972, public support for the network saved it.
"Communist East elected to keep" - that's a generous overstatement. The East wasn't uniform, it was inconsistent, and when they decided to remove the tram, it was done at much slower pace. In the 1940s-1960s Moscow axed hundreds of kilometers of tram lines, but hundreds more remained, etc. Chișinău tram was closed in 1961, Chernivtsi tram in 1967 etc.
Over the past few months, ive been adoring finding people covering topics from morticians to mathematicians that coveing topics I've already learnt about with an aussie perspective.
We're very much influsenced by the us, but we're not the same. And hearing "its like x", "here its x" yadda yadda. And sometimes i forget that im not in the same place as them.
Aussies, i feel, get more international imformation. Here its aus focused, but the maths one was talking about india and china etc. Its so refreshing. Actually being reminded that other places have other rules and culture
Although Melbourne transitioned from horse trams -> cable cars -> electric trams, Sydney did it differently. There was a short-lived horse tram line in 1861 but the bulk of the System started off in 1879 with steam trams, which were actually true light rail trains, being a loco hauling three passenger cars. Most steam sets were replaced by electric trams except for the Kogarah-Sans Souci steam trams (replaced in 1937 by trolleybuses) and the Cronulla steam trams closed in 1930 but not replaced by the present train service until 1939. The last Parramatta steam trams ran in 1943 and were not replaced by anything.
Sydney and Newcastle had some oddities, such as the Maitland-Morpeth Branch rail line operated by trams for 20 years (closed in 1953), and the Camden tramline operated by trains (closed in 1962).
No it's not odd at all. What is odd is that the other cities got rid of their network.
Sounds a bit like the situation here in theUK, where tram systems gradually shut down. London finished in 1952; it would have been earlier if the Second World War hadn’t happened. The last city to lose its trams was Glasgow, in 1962. That left just one system operating, Blackpool in Lancashire, where several lines closed, but one remained, running along the coast to Fleetwood. Again, there was one man who strongly supported retaining the trams. He introduced new trams in the 1930#, some of which remained in regular use until a few years ago, along with some of more recent vintage.
In the last decade the system has been modernised, with much of thetrack and overhead equipment replaced and a fleet of new modern trams introduced. A short extension to the system to server the town’s main railway station has need built but I’m not sure if it has actually opened yet.
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In recent times new tram systems have opened in Manchester, Sheffield, Birmingham, Croydon in South London, Nottingham and Edinburgh.
I grew up in Melbourne. I miss trams here in Perth.
No, it is strange that many crowded urban areas in the world don’t have trans. In fact cities such as Mumbai, instead of expanding tram network, eliminated trams. Trams are safe, comfortable and quick, cost effective & environmentally friendly transport.
I lived in Melbourne for two years, and rode the trams daily. The fact the city kept its trams - and has the largest network of any city in the world - is truly outstanding. Particularly when one considers the woeful public transportation status in most car-dependent "New World" cities.
However, a contrary note of caution: The massive suburbanization of the city over the last few decades, with the eastern suburbs in particular extending vast distances, is not at all conducive to a car-free society. As cities there continue to grow in size (particularly Melbourne and Sydney, but Brisbane also increasing in population rapidly), the Australian dream of everyone owning their own single storey suburban unit really needs to be revisited. Despite may great things about Melbourne, it suffers from a severe lack of medium density districts of the type one may see so widely in European and Northeast Asian cities (where - surprise surprise - public transportation utilisation is also the highest). In many ways Melbourne's urban design is identical to so many of its contemporaries in the United States, Canada and elsewhere in Australia: A commercially-focused CBD with tall skyscrapers, then dropping off totally to single storey units stretching to suburban infinity.
Apartment living doesn't have to mean living in a box in the sky. A city like Barcelona shows what can be done with effective medium density.
I would literally rather be dead than live in an apartment. Where would I keep my Rottweilers?
What a special video! What do you mean by listen minus the image? Hope you’re doing well in your chosen fields. I love this video; sound and picture!❤
thank you for your kind words! this was originally made as a podcast with no intention of adding visuals.
this is a very well researched and neat video. thanks for sharing
this is an amazing video! you are so underrated, this deserves at least 500k views
so true "public transport availability increasing correlate with wealth", so much for the public good, accessible to all?
This channel is going to go places
Excellent piece. I'm not Australian, but this was so interesting all the same. I do hope you'll make more of this style, or that maybe you have a podcast? Your voices work really well together. Having said that, I actually quite enjoyed the video footage.
Very good video. Nice narration and interesting story!
Trams are melbourne s iconic Vehicle, i love them 😊
Interesting video, even though I know little of Melbourne. I observe that a major obstacles to tram/light rail is the high standard of track work and hence huge cost. Does Melbourne have good methods for laying track less expensively?
Here in Bordeaux, the cost of laying superb foundations and relocating underground services make extensions very slow and I imagine expensive. I suspect that earlier tram lines were built less expensively and also easier to change. Perhaps Melbourne wide roads help, and perhaps ground conditions allow simple track foundations.
There were still protests on replacing electric trains on the St Kilda and Port Melbourne with trams, light rail was called a “lie trail”. A statement I read by the public transport department (true or not) wss that patronage on the Box Hill lines carried more passengers an hour compared to what the St Kilda and or Port Melbourne lines carried in a day. (Iforget if it was both St Kilda/Port Melbourne lines).
The tram lines run a slightly different rout so I don’t know if these heavy rail services could be improved with 2023 thinking. Towards the end, Harris trains were modified into pseudo Commeng trains with heating and air-con and run on the St. Kilda and Sandringham lines.
Port Melbourne and St Kilda are a lot shorter than the Mont Albert tram. ( Box hill didn't have a tram at that time). Meaning if you serve fewer people you get less patronage. That is easy. But because St Kilda and Port Melbourne were largely grade separated they were an example of how all transport should be done. Along with lines to Camberwell and a lot of the Outer circle railway amongst others. I lived in South Melbourne and the thing we all appreciated is that it was much faster to go by train than by tram and it dropped us off at Flinders Street. In the "centre" of the city as it was. Light rail permits vehicles to go on the road. But that is a double edged sword.
This was before Melbourne became super crowded 😅🤣 I have lived in Melbourne for 16 years now & i love the transportation, especially trains 🚉 and trams🚊🤗 but let's be honest, this video 📹 is quite a bit old. at least 10 or 11 years old. I watched the entire video and trust me, i can't remember the last time I saw Melbourne Street that empty. those yellow taxis 🚕 were no longer famous after facing major problems & the city is no longer what you see right now in the video, the city is now massively upgraded.
In my country, Toronto has "trams" aka streetcars. So no, it's not weird that Melbourne has trams.
No. not strange at all. Brisbane and Sydney both had trams. They got a transport consultant from Los Angeles and the first thing he did was shut down both Sydney’s and Brisbanes trams. Then he planned massive freeways. You can see the freeway remnants at Sydney’s Darling Harbour. in Brisbane there is the freeway built as an immense bridge over the Brisbane river. it was criminal that the trams were destroyed in the Capital cities.
Not sure how Melbourne escaped the carnage.
Isn't it strange Sydney is finally getting their light rail and all Brisbane is getting is the metro amusement park ride?
More typical than strange.
Thanks for sharing this. I am from Melbourne, and I am blessed that I live in a city with a very good and big tram/light rail system
That intro thumbnail with "weird" on it with all those W8 class trams parked together gave me flashbacks to our once major tram strike that happened in 1990 here...We may have our trams but we don't have our "woodies" anymore and our current tram fleet isn't nearly diverse nor interesting as it once was some 33 years ago...
Excellent film and commentary. What the progress of this tram through central Melbourne shows is the lack of tram priority at road junctions. Too often the tram has to wait at signals while cars get priority on the intersecting road. The journey speeds are too low as a result. Trams should stop at their stops just long enough for passengers to get on and off. As we can see, too often the tram is held at the tram stop (just before the signals) for 1-2 minutes. More people would use the trams, and fewer would use cars, if these signalled junctions were to give trams priority (except where a tram on the intersecting road is crossing, as can be seen once or twice in this film).
One clip shows someone in a black car doing a 'hook turn' at a signalled junction (a unique manoeuve permitted only in Melbourne) in front of the tram.
Isn’t it strange how WAY TO MANY DAMN CARS slow them down?
Great episode. But there in fact was a major protest movement in Melbourne that won the protection of our trams, and the left who fought for it did include many communists, socialists, marxists and anarchists. These included many people who had experienced the power of collection action from their experiences in their unions, where they won the rights we all take for granted today. They took the fight to the streets to save what we all know and love to this day, melbourne's trams.
Really good storytelling mate!
Interesting video , I don’t really have the love for trams and public transport that some people do , i guess they are a necessary thing though ,
I used to use the old w class to go to school back in the early 70’s, and occasionally to go into Melbourne shops in my younger days with dear old mum , drafty , stinky ( you could smell the brakes) , noisy , slow , at times crowded .
At least on the old W class , I think there where more seats on them , a lot of the modern trams standing room is more prioritised it seems so they can cram more people in like sardines.
Give me a car any day .
I think mentioned was the capacity of trams to take people away from the footy😂, I wonder how many people in the comments have ever riden on one of these things when they are absolutely packed😊?
Just not a fun ride , and if you have been anywhere near a footy oval or especially the MCG at the end of the game , it is absolutely pandemonium , and jolimont station is on another level of craziness at those times , especially at grand final day.
Imagine the MCG at finish time with anything from 80,000 to over 100,000 people spilling out , at one stage a concert was staged there with a record 140,000 +people 😂 , yeah let’s get on a tram or train😊.
Haven’t seen any mention of the massive network in Amsterdam, great video though !
A 👋HELLO 👋 from the original home of the “Bumblebee’s” C2 series - Mulhouse/France 😅
*The highest of praise to you both for your efforts in producing this video! This is **_SO, SO MUCH BETTER_** than I expected!* Your research shows in your commentary, and even I, as a lifelong tramway enthusiast, and one that considers Melbourne's tramway his _"playground,"_ I have learnt something! I never knew there had been a planned tramline to Chadstone! 🤯 I knew well of Sir Robert Risson, and how he (basically) saved the Melbourne tramways from extinction, but not a lot else. I also knew of the 1980 plan to get rid of trams in Melbourne (Do you have any links to this information?), along with the closure of the St Kilda (and Port Melbourne) rail lines, which only being a little kid (from interstate) at the time, I never got to ride.
A final note on Sir Robert Risson - he successfully argued to save Melbourne's trams for the (then) upcoming 1956 Olympics, arguing that it was "a relatively modern tramway system." Sydney was largely gone by 1958, with the final nail in the coffin being 25/2/1961 with the closure of the last two line - that of La Perouse and Maroubra Beach. Broken Hill was all steam powered, and had closed (AIRC) in 1927. A few landmarks remain today, but not much else.
I grew up in greater Boston and I wish that city kept all its trolleys (they're like trams but collect their power with a single trolley pole instead of a pantograph). Boston would have the most extensive tram network today instead of the sorry remnant that still exists called the Green Line which they did add to, once in the 50s and again in the past few years, and another remnant called the Ashmont Mattapan Line which still runs streetcar type trolleys while the Green Line runs LRVs which are trams but we call trolleys! Go figure.
I'm from Boston, myself, and our transit system has gone down the toilet (which is a real shame). For a great deal of my life, it was quite good.
Great job guys!
well done Melbourne
This video is amazing I love it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
This is some great audio storytelling
This is a really nice and informative video
As a Melburnian, i've been amused to see trams being put back in Sydney, Adelaide (cute little ones!), Dublin and Edinburgh. They almost seem like a status symbol now. George Street in Sydney used to be a dead traffic sewer, but now with trams and pedestrians only, it's full of life, the change is amazing. Of course Sydney knocked down a perfectly good tram depot for that opera house thing 😆. We should put up a statue to Risson.
Love me a hookturn, my hometown in the UK had a huge network..torn out in the 60's
Adelaide also kept a couple minor tram lines
very enjoyable! Thank you.
I take this tram 109 Port Melb/ BOX Hill every day , here I am re living my daily trip . Why dream ?
Isn't it strange that most cities don’t have trams!
No, most cities do have trams! its quiet rare to have a bigger city (~150k+) without a tram network here in Germany, Austria and probably Netherlands, France, Czechia, etc...
Only the english speaking countries have destroyed there tram networks
To me.. the problem started when the government took over the running of trams in the first place... whilst sometimes government needs to get involved, the best networks (I am thinking of Japan here) are ones still run as private profitable competitive services with a large handsome city subsidy in recognition of their public importance...
these are the kind of tram systems that not only maintain good rolling stock, but actually will expand buying up land (with the help of prefectural committees) to resell it to high-density developers around new stations, and linking pre-existing suburbs into the sprawl of a beautiful attractive network.