POWERHOUSE COLLECTION

Postcard depicting Sydney trams

Object No. 2013/90/1

This photograph comprises two postcards which have been joined to make a panorama style image of the corner of King and Elizabeth Streets, Sydney, in about 1904. The photograph is particularly rare and significant as it shows three types of Sydney trams in the one image: steam, cable and electric. These trams illustrate and represent the development of trams throughout the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. On the right hand side is a steam tram motor as evidenced by a small puff of steam near the tram's roof. Steam trams were introduced to Sydney in 1879 as a temporary measure to convey visitors to the city for the Sydney International Exhibition. Steam trams were like small steam locomotives but running on the street, hauling double-deck and later single-deck carriages. They were so efficient and popular that they stayed for years and new routes were built. By 1894 the Sydney steam tram network extended 65 km, and 100 steam tram motors were in operation. The centre of the photograph, looking down King Street, shows two cable trams. Cable trams consisted of two vehicles working together. The leading car was an open tramcar with perimeter seats under a canopy style roof, known as the dummy or grip car, while an enclosed saloon tram or trailer was pulled behind. Cable trams were powered by a large steam winding engine in an engine house. The engine hauled an endless steel cable lying beneath the tram tracks in a shallow channel along the tram route. Sydney had two cable trams routes on terrain too steep for steam trams. The services ran from King's Street Wharf, along King Street to Ocean Street, Edgecliff, which opened in 1894, and at North Sydney. Following the introduction of electric trams on these routes, cable trams ceased running in Sydney in 1905. On the left coming into the photograph is an electric tram. Power for Sydney's electric tram system was generated at Ultimo Power House, which opened in 1899 (and which now houses this museum) while the nearby Ultimo Tram Depot (now the museum's workshop and offices) housed 108 trams on 12 tracks. Electric trams were quiet, clean, fast and enormously popular. The tram system was extremely important to Sydney. It was capable of moving massive numbers of people in and around the city and suburbs, and it became the largest in the British empire after London. Patronage peaked in 1945 with 405 million passengers. Due to the rise of the motor car, trams were unfairly blamed for the city's congestion. The closure of Sydney's immense system began in 1956, and trams were replaced by diesel buses. The last tram left Sydney's streets in 1961, but they returned in 1997 in a new guise as light rail vehicles. Simpson, Margaret, "On the Move: a history of Transport in Australia", Powerhouse Publishing, 2004. Margaret Simpson Curator, Transport September 2013