The city of Geelong in Victoria, Australia, operated an extensive tramway system from 1912 until 1956, when the service was replaced by buses. Unlike Victoria's other major regional cities, Ballarat and Bendigo, which have kept some track and trams as tourist attractions, no trams or tracks remain in Geelong.
There had been proposals to build a tram network in Geelong as early as 1888. [1] : 140 [2] Two companies, the Geelong Electric Light, Electric Motor, Electric Tram and Omnibus Company, and the Geelong and District Electric Tramway Company Limited, attended a meeting to get support for their plans in June 1888. [1] : 140 After lengthy discussions, and the need to get State Government approval, a plan was finally accepted by the Geelong Town Council in 1890. However the economic depression which occurred after the collapse of the 1880s Land Boom, led to the plans being cancelled in 1891. [1] : 144 Further agitation for a tramway started again in 1906, but it took until July 1910 before agreement was reached with the Melbourne Electric Supply Company for the construction and operation of a tram system. [1] : 152 The company would have the lease on the trams for a period of 30 years. [3]
Construction began in December 1910, and part of the line was first tested on 10 January 1912 in front of a large crowd. [1] : 152 The Geelong tram network was officially opened on 14 March 1912 with bands, huge crowds, and a procession of four highly decorated trams. [1] : 152 Official passengers on the trams included the Mayor of Geelong, the Mayor of Newtown and Chilwell, the Mayor of Geelong West, other councillors, directors of the company, and state politicians. [4] At each municipal boundary permission was asked for the trams to enter, and a ribbon was cut.
| Route | Details | Opening Date |
|---|---|---|
| Wharf | City to north end of Moorabool St | 14/3/1912 |
| Station | City to Geelong station via Malop St | 14/3/1912 |
| West | City to Pakington/Church St via Ryrie St | 14/3/1912 |
| Newtown | Pakington/Aberdeen St to Aphrasia St/Shannon Ave | 14/3/1912 |
| South | Moorabool/Ryrie St to Moorabool/Fyans St | ?/1913 |
| South | Moorabool/Fyans St to Barwon Bridge | 12/1913 |
| East | Moorabool/Ryrie St to Garden/Ryrie St | 12/10/1922 |
| East | Garden/Ryrie St to Humble St/Ormond Rd | 25/1/1923 |
| East | Humble St/Ormond Rd to Boundary/Ormond Rd | 1/3/1923 |
| Chilwell | Pakington/Aphrasia St to Pakington/Fyans St | 30/9/1927 |
| Belmont | Barwon Bridge to Roslyn Rd/Colac Rd | 16/12/1927 |
| North | Mercer/Malop St to Bell Pde/Melbourne Rd | 6/7/1928 |
| North | Bell Parade to Victoria St/Melbourne Rd | 14/6/1929 |
| North | Victoria St./Melbourne Rd to Separation St/Melbourne Rd | 20/12/1929 |
| Eastern Park | Ryrie/Garden St to Humble St/Portarlington Rd | 10/9/1930 |
| Beach | Depot to Corio Tce/Bellarine St | 19-10-1940 |
[5] : 4
| Route | Details | Date |
|---|---|---|
| City | Moorabool St. from Malop to Ryrie St | 14/3/1912 |
| Station | Malop St to Geelong station | 1914 |
| Wharf | Moorabool/Malop St to Moorabool St Wharf | 1914 |
| East/West | Garden St/Ryrie St to Latrobe Tce/Ryrie St | 1923 |
| West | Latrobe Tce/Ryrie St to Aberdeen/Pakington St | 4/1929 |
| North | Mercer St to Victoria St/Melbourne Rd | 1929/1930 |
| Depot | Long loop in Corio Tce | 5/1929 |
[5] : 4
| Route | Details | Date |
|---|---|---|
| Newtown | Retreat Rd/Pleasant St to Pakington St/Aphrasia St | 1914 |
[5] : 4
In 1930 the tramways were taken over by the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SEC). This was part of the SEC taking over the supply of electricity for Victoria, and it included the tramways in Geelong, Bendigo and Ballarat. A tramway extension to Eastern Beach opened in October 1940 along Bellarine Street to cater to beach goers. [6]
During World War II, passenger traffic increased as a result of petrol rationing and people employed in munitions factories around Geelong. In 1943 the trams carried 6,500,000 people. [1] : 168 Because of the shortage of men to work on the trams, the SEC decided to employ women to work as conductors. [7]
In 1949, H.H. Bell jnr., the son of the chairman of the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board, [5] : 8 prepared a report on the Geelong tramways for the Geelong City Council. [8] He found that the trams were obsolete, and could not be run profitably in a city with only 52,000 people. The Council accepted his findings by nine votes to one. [8] The Australian Road Safety Council had identified trams as being "Australia's number one road menace", [9] alleging that they were 16 times more likely to be involved in accidents than motor vehicles. [9]
In 1953, a government report recommended replacing the trams with buses. The Liberal state government of Henry Bolte, elected in June 1955, decided in July that the trams should be replaced by privately-owned buses as soon as possible. [10] Bolte described the Geelong tramway as being outdated and hopelessly inadequate. [11] The SEC argued that the cost of tickets did not cover the cost of wages, and certainly did not meet the cost of maintenance or electricity. [1] : 173 It was estimated that the tram system was losing £95,000 each year, and needed to have £2,000,000 spent on it to upgrade the tracks and tramcars. [12] Tramway union members argued that the SEC had let the system run down, and that it was losing business by not extending the network into new suburban areas. [13] The Geelong Chamber of Commerce supported the closure of the system, with the president saying they would be glad to have the trams off the streets. [10] Protest meetings were held to try and save the trams, without success. [14]
The last tram ran from the city to Belmont and back on 25 March 1956. [15] Thousands of people were in the streets to celebrate the event. [1] : 181 The tram which ran the last service was Geelong No.4. It had made the first test run on the system on 12 January 1912. [1] : 181
Over the years, there have been proposals to bring trams back into the city, [16] [17] but the idea has never been looked at seriously. [18]
Immediately following World War II, the following services were through-routed:
After a timetable reorganisation in December 1952, the pattern was altered to:
The original fleet of Geelong trams was made up of seven single-truck cars, with bodies made by Duncan & Fraser of Adelaide using Brush trucks. [1] : 156 They were assembled in the depot in Corio Terrace (now called Brougham Street). There were also four non-powered trailer cars.
Over the years, a variety of different trams operated on the Geelong network. Their trucks (bogies) were made by Brush Traction (UK) and JG Brill Company (USA), and their bodies were constructed by Brill (USA), Duncan & Fraser (Adelaide), A Pengelly & Co (Adelaide), and Meadowbank Manufacturing Company (Sydney). [1] : 188–191 Trams were moved around the different tramway networks in Victoria. Geelong no.29 was originally built in 1915 for the Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust, was moved to Geelong in 1928, and was then moved to Ballarat in 1936. [1] : 190 When the system closed in 1956, it was running about 30 trams, numbered from 1 to 40.
There are a number of surviving Geelong trams. They are in a number of museums, including the Tramway Museum Society of Victoria collection at Bylands, [19] the Ballarat Tramway Museum, the Bendigo Tramways, and the Sydney Tramway Museum. Several are also privately owned.
A Birney or Birney Safety Car is a type of streetcar that was manufactured in the United States in the 1910s and 1920s. The design was small and light and was intended to be an economical means of providing frequent service at a lower infrastructure and labor cost than conventional streetcars. Production of Birney cars lasted from 1915 until 1930, and more than 6,000 of the original, single-truck version were built. Several different manufacturers built Birney cars. The design was "the first mass-produced standard streetcar " in North America.
The Tramway Museum Society of Victoria Incorporated (TMSV) owns a large collection of trams from Melbourne, Ballarat, Geelong, Adelaide, and Sydney as well as preserved buses and other work vehicles.
The State Electricity Commission of Victoria is a government-owned electricity supplier in Victoria, Australia. It was set up in 1918, and by 1972 it was the sole agency in the state for electricity generation, transmission, distribution and supply. Control of the SECV was by a Board of Commissioners appointed by the Victorian Government. After 1993, the SECV was disaggregated into generation, transmission and distribution companies, which were further split and then privatised in the mid to late 1990s. However, electricity supply agreements with the Portland and Point Henry aluminium smelters were retained by SECV, which continued as their electricity supplier.
The W-class trams are a family of electric trams built by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) between 1923 and 1956. Over the 33 years of production, 752 vehicles spanning 12 sub-classes were constructed, the majority at the MMTB's Preston Workshops.
The Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust (PMTT) was a former tram operator in Melbourne, Australia. The trust was formed in 1907, with its first line operating in 1910. Its functions were taken over by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board in 1920.
The earliest trams in Australia operated in the latter decades of the 19th century, hauled by horses or "steam tram motors". At the turn of the 20th century, propulsion almost universally turned to electrification, although cable trams lingered in Melbourne. In cities and towns that had trams, they were a major part of public transport assets.
The Geelong–Ballarat railway line is a broad-gauge railway in western Victoria, Australia between the cities of Geelong and Ballarat. Towns on the route include Bannockburn, Lethbridge, Meredith, Elaine and Lal Lal. Major traffic includes general freight from the Mildura line, and grain.
Trams in Ballarat were first used for public transport in 1887. They ceased to operate as a means of public transport in 1971, but a section continues to be operated today as a tourist attraction.
The Ballarat Tramway Museum is an operating tramway museum, located in Ballarat, Victoria, Australia. The museum is run by volunteers and has a fleet of trams which operate on part of the original horse tramway around Lake Wendouree and the Botanical Gardens. It has a large research collection, archive of information and more than 3,500 items about the Ballarat tramways. The trams in Ballarat operated on a large network through the city from 1887 until 1971.
Melbourne's tram classification system is based on classes originally devised by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB). At first this was largely based on the order in which the original tramway operators had introduced each different type of tramcar between 1906 and 1920.
Duncan & Fraser Limited was a vehicle manufacturing company founded in 1865 in Adelaide, South Australia that built horse-drawn carriages and horse trams, and subsequently bodies for trains, electric trams and motor cars, becoming one of the largest carriage building companies in Australia.
The C-class was a group of 11 trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide for the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust (P&MTT) in 1913, numbered 25 to 35. All retained their fleet numbers when passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) on 2 February 1920, after it took over the P&MTT. They were designated C-class sometime after October 1921, and by late 1923, all M&MTB drop-end-and-centre Maximum Traction trams were grouped together as C-class trams. The 22E Maximum Traction trucks were of JG Brill design, although manufactured by Brush in England.
The E-class was a group of 10 trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide, for the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust (P&MTT) in 1914, numbered 36 to 45. Number 36 was converted to a different form by the P&MTT circa 1916, and was later designated D-class. All retained their fleet numbers when passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) after it took over the P&MTT on 2 February 1920, and they were designated E-class sometime after October 1921. By late 1923, together with other all M&MTB drop-end-and-centre Maximum Traction trams, they were re-classed as C-class trams. The 22E Maximum Traction trucks were of JG Brill design, although manufactured by Brush in England.
The H-class was a class of ten trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide for the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust (PMTT). All passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board on 2 February 1920 when it took over the PMTT becoming the H-class retaining their running numbers. In 1931, number 63 was sold for further use on the Ballarat network and placed in service as number 18.
The J-class was a class of twenty trams built by the Meadowbank Manufacturing Company, Sydney for the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust (PMTT). All passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board on 2 February 1920 when it took over the PMTT becoming the J-class retaining their running numbers.
The M-class was a class of 17 trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide for the Hawthorn Tramways Trust (HTT) as numbers 1 to 10, and 33 to 39. All passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board on 2 February 1920 when it took over the Municipal Tramway Trusts, becoming the M-class and being renumbered 107 to 116, and 183 to 189.
The N-class was a class of 10 trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide for the Hawthorn Tramways Trust (HTT) as numbers 11 to 20, all passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) on 2 February 1920 when it took over the HTT, becoming the N-class and being renumbered 117 to 126.
The P-class was a class of eight trams built by Duncan & Fraser, Adelaide for the Hawthorn Tramway Trust (HTT) as numbers 25 to 32. All passed to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board on 2 February 1920 when it took over the HTT becoming the P-class and being renumbered 131 to 138.
The G type Adelaide tram was a class of four single truck Birney trams, manufactured by the US firm J.G. Brill Company. They arrived in completely knocked down form and were assembled by the Municipal Tramways Trust in 1924.
O’Neil, David J., History of the Geelong Electric Tramways, 1912-1956, self-published, 1994. ISBN 0 646 16868 1
