News & Discussion: Trams

[Eurostar]

During peak hour and event days a tram would help transport masses of people to and from city.

[ChillyPhilly]

Thanks for your insights Spotto.

I guess what i'm trying to say, and i'm a big supporter of trams.... I catch them every other day for free in the city. Why would any Govt. spend billions of dollars re-laying them to the 'burbs when we've had them going there before? It would be a hard sell to the public.

I look at the map from the 50's, and in hindsight they should've at least kept the arterial roads.

It's only a hard sell if framed that way.

Promoting the benefits is a better way to market the idea.

Stimulus of urban renewal, uplift in property values, quieter/safer roads and streets, less traffic, less pollution, better connectivity, and so much more.

[Nort]

Yeah.

The unfortunate thing about building new public transport infrastructure like trains and trams is that it will take a long time for its benefits to fully come alive, because it takes decades for development to reflect the opportunities it offers.

The saying about vegetation comes to mind: The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is today.

We can't undo the planning mistakes of the past, but we can set things up so that the Adelaide of 2050, 2100, and beyond is better.

[SBD]

I'm not old enough to remember, but I suspect that removing the trams might have been part of the trade-off for new investment in car manufacturing in SA. Both the Holden (Elizabeth) and Chrysler (later Mitsubishi at Tonsley) factories received big development around then.

Well, THAT failed anyway... maybe we should try a new tram network with SA-built trams!

Foreign investment is good, but the former car manufacturers had control moved overseas too. I suspect we also have the opportunity to encourage Australian industry to develop electric or hydrogen (or something not yet thought of) trucks, buses and cars (maybe even planes), either in whole or develop the power train in conjunction with an established fossil-fuel-powered vehicle manufacturer.

[whatstheirnamesmom]

From my many conversations about trams with all sorts of people, I’ve found many aren’t aware of our tram history, and many have no idea where services used to run to. Some people know of services that ran in their local area (Norwood and Henley Beach lines were popular and are more salient in the minds of locals) but very few are aware of the full extent of the network that was.

The remaining people that actually remember the old network were mostly children at the time — and very few physical remnants exist to remind us of what was.

I don’t expect the argument that we are again building what we once ripped up to feature too heavily in any campaign to stop future expansion.

I think the more effective anti-tram angle would be the supposed effect it has on traffic congestion, on-street car parking, ‘unsightly’ overhead wires and any affect it may have on street vegetation. Expect the RAA to use at least one of those points in their inevitable subversive campaign to again prevent PT expansion..!

[rubberman]

While we had a large tram network, it was pretty banged up. It had suffered lack of investment through the Depression and then the Second World War, and then post War shortages.

What that meant was much of the track was in need of replacement, and extension. One of the bridges on the Findon line was unsafe (it was pedestrian only after the trams closed, and one of the piers was visibly dangling). Similarly, trams like the A class, B, C, D, E1 were underpowered, slow and partly open to the weather so needed replacing, that's something like 160 trams. Then the dropcentre cars were wood and steel bodies, with the higher maintenance needed for repainting etc, plus being open to the weather in the drop centre section. Much of the power infrastructure, eg the Port Adelaide power station and rotary converters were old and inefficient.

So to say we had a system is correct in a narrow historical sense. But in a real world analysis, it was a heap of junk, worn out by years of (necessary) underinvestment. It was simply far far cheaper to replace it with buses.

[[Shuz]]

Agreed - in the many conversations I've had with friends, family, colleagues, even random strangers - many people have been absolutely shocked to learn just how extensive the tram network used to be and despair why it was torn up, the common replies both being "We could've had decent public transport and/or we could have grown a bit bigger (meaning maintaing our status - up until the 1980s - as the 3rd biggest city in Australia, rather than 5th currently) and been similar to Melbourne in terms of culture.

It's one of our biggest mistakes. The curel irony also being that they were ripped up in favour of mass produced 1950s car culture, which led to the 1969 MATS plan - which then was only partially implemented, and now we're paying a very steep price ($10b) for the NS Corridor segment (Noarlunga/Salisbury Freeway component), which could have been done far cheaper had it been implemented right the first time. Instead we lost out twice, and face the very real economic consequences as a result today.

You consider also the butterfly effect - had things gone a different way, the flow on consequences would have been different. Possibly no State Bank collapse for one?

Can't change the past. But we can change the future and I would argue we need to correct our mistakes, restore the tram system, and redraft the MATS plan in a more modern context - i.e East West Link tunnels.

[whatstheirnamesmom]

I'm not old enough to remember, but I suspect that removing the trams might have been part of the trade-off for new investment in car manufacturing in SA. Both the Holden (Elizabeth) and Chrysler (later Mitsubishi at Tonsley) factories received big development around then.

Well, THAT failed anyway... maybe we should try a new tram network with SA-built trams!

While many believe it was part of a bigger ploy between govt. and car manufacturers to set up shop here (which is definitely plausible), we've never really seen any concrete evidence to suggest the state or federal govt. made any such deals/were in cahoots at all, have we? I think the more likely scenario was that these companies saw favourable conditions in Adelaide and made a smart business decision to open factories here.

It's generally been noted that network closure happened for a multitude of reasons, and some of it was pure bad luck. As others mentioned, the network was neglected during the war and was in a poor state. Steel was difficult to obtain. The rolling stock was ageing and slow. Patronage was on the way down before the outbreak of WW2.

After the war ended, patronage continued to decline. This was not helped when petrol rationing finally ended in 1951 and the cost of new cars continued to fall. Suddenly a car was much more affordable. Culturally, cars were seen as the way of the future, and trams were 'old news'. With more car numbers and a growing population, safety between cars and trams became a hot issue, with many calling for tram removal.

The General Manager of the Municipal Tramways Trust, Sir William Goodman, held the position from 1907 until 1950. He was lauded as a visionary for the speed in which he electrified and expanded the network, and for the tight ship he ran. With his retirement at age 78, the MTT fell to different leadership. The MTT continued to bleed money in the early 50s, such that a royal commission was called into its financial affairs. The network's future prospects were worsened when in 1953, the royal commission led to a completely reconstituted board, who were far less reluctant about closing the tram system.

I agree that local tram and train manufacturing could be a massive boon to the state. I am glad to see the new govt. investing in more trade schools to address the skills shortage, which hopefully could allow local manufacturing to start again someday.

[Spotto]

maybe we should try a new tram network with SA-built trams!

SA-built trams is unlikely, we’ll probably keep buying excess Citadis trams from Madrid. Cheaper and easier to run a common fleet.

If Australian made were to happen, built by Alstom Dandenong would be more likely considering they (as Bombardier) have built a number of successful tram types for Victoria.


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[[Shuz]]

Albanese, if elected, has guaranteed a coordination of state/commonwealth affairs when it comes to rail manufacturing. Reading between the lines, I interpret this as using Bombardier (Melbourne) as the manufacturing centre for trams for the whole of Australia. The Flexitys are made by Bombardier so would suspect if we expanded our network, expect to see new generation Flexities to support the system.

[PeFe]

"We could've had decent public transport and/or we could have grown a bit bigger (meaning maintaing our status - up until the 1980s - as the 3rd biggest city in Australia, rather than 5th currently) and been similar to Melbourne in terms of culture.

I believe Brisbane overtook Adelaide's population in 1968 to become Australia's third largest city, and Perth leapfrogged Adelaide in 1984 to become Australia's fourth largest city.

[gnrc_louis]

"We could've had decent public transport and/or we could have grown a bit bigger (meaning maintaing our status - up until the 1980s - as the 3rd biggest city in Australia, rather than 5th currently) and been similar to Melbourne in terms of culture.

I believe Brisbane overtook Adelaide's population in 1968 to become Australia's third largest city, and Perth leapfrogged Adelaide in 1984 to become Australia's fourth largest city.

It was even earlier than that - 1937 was the first year Brisbane recorded a larger population than Adelaide. It swapped around a bit during the early years of WW2, before Brisbane finally overtook Adelaide for good in 1943. That said, there were a few years in the mid 60s where Adelaide almost re-overtook Brisbane.

[A-Town]

I'm not old enough to remember, but I suspect that removing the trams might have been part of the trade-off for new investment in car manufacturing in SA. Both the Holden (Elizabeth) and Chrysler (later Mitsubishi at Tonsley) factories received big development around then.

Well, THAT failed anyway... maybe we should try a new tram network with SA-built trams!

Foreign investment is good, but the former car manufacturers had control moved overseas too. I suspect we also have the opportunity to encourage Australian industry to develop electric or hydrogen (or something not yet thought of) trucks, buses and cars (maybe even planes), either in whole or develop the power train in conjunction with an established fossil-fuel-powered vehicle manufacturer.

Probably a fair bit of truth to this. Same thing happened in the USA back in the early to mid 1900s too I believe.

[A-Town]

Albanese, if elected, has guaranteed a coordination of state/commonwealth affairs when it comes to rail manufacturing. Reading between the lines, I interpret this as using Bombardier (Melbourne) as the manufacturing centre for trams for the whole of Australia. The Flexitys are made by Bombardier so would suspect if we expanded our network, expect to see new generation Flexities to support the system.

It would be great to see the end of the older 'yellow faced' trams on our network. They are far too narrow and have a lack of doors. If our network was capable of having them, it would be good to see trams with the width of Sydney's.

[rubberman]

Albanese, if elected, has guaranteed a coordination of state/commonwealth affairs when it comes to rail manufacturing. Reading between the lines, I interpret this as using Bombardier (Melbourne) as the manufacturing centre for trams for the whole of Australia. The Flexitys are made by Bombardier so would suspect if we expanded our network, expect to see new generation Flexities to support the system.

It would be great to see the end of the older 'yellow faced' trams on our network. They are far too narrow and have a lack of doors. If our network was capable of having them, it would be good to see trams with the width of Sydney's.

Both the Flexity and Citadis trams in Adelaide are 2.4m wide. The Sydney Citadis is the same, but the Citadis is really just a cheap updated version of a bib and bub style tram that fell out of fashion in the 1920s due to its slowness and track damage. And the less said about Sydney's CAF trams, the better.

A better bet might be to order Melbourne E trams, made in Australia. Or Škoda 15T made overseas. However, we'd have to alter our stops as they are 2.65m.