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Running m M RUNNINGIf it’s about something that runs on rails, RUNNING AB CKACB is where youK run it inside: Plenty to look into and start does JOURNAL thinking about in “Running Memphis Back” this month. News from Victoria’s Original & Biggest Tramway Heritage Centre No. 199 / 2010 $2* A scene (top) from Steven Spielberg’s “The Pacific”, recently seen on Ch 7, poses all manner of questions for Melburnians. Would the station have looked this good back in WW2? What a fine-looking structure it is. NEXT STOP A scene from Steven Spielberg’s “The Pacific” (Channel 7) KILMORE?

The picture above shows Station, and buses, all still familiar A CarGoTram freighter in Dresden. Melbourne next? to us, in 1946. Flinders St Station was designed in the UK and there has been a persistent rumour that the design was intended for the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus in Mumbai. It has never been confirmed, of course. The CarGo (centre) carries parts across Dresden for Volkswagen. The 5-segment trams run every 60 minutes and were built by Schalker Eisenhütte Maschinenfabrik GmbH in Gelsenkirchen. The idea is terrific How do you see the future of MTM? Let us know. as it keeps plenty of trucks off the On page 7 you’ll find a roads. Service started in 2001. discussion of some of the

Any chance such an idea could issues relating to operating IN THIS ISSUE catch on in Melbourne? a service in Kilmore. This • 100 YEARS OF THE P&MTT NOT A MEMBER? Finally, home at rustic MTM includes the twin questions • NZ’S NEW BIRNEY CAR JOIN US NOW AT of visibility for us and the • Ws IN ELVISVILLE www.tramway.org.au Bylands, our star tram comes benefits to Kilmore of such • W 667 BACK FROM THE WAR • NEWS FROM MTM BYLANDS firmly back down to earth an eye-catching tourist • BOUQUETS & BRICKBATS NEW POSTAL ADDRESS: Chairman Doug welcomes 667 back to MTM Bylands (bottom) after its career in films. attraction. • RUNNING BACK SEE PAGE 2 FOR DETAILS What’s your view?

® 8 q Running Journal No. 199 / 2010 RUNNING JOURNAL is produced by PERCEPTIONEERING : DEVELOPING POSITIVE IMPRESSIONS. 0408 345 728 *suggested donation © 2010 Tramway Museum Society of Victoria Inc. Design © Tony Miles/Perceptioneering®. All Rights Reserved BYLANDs BLITZ As part of the Big Clean-up at KILMORE BY MTM Bylands, the windscreen, YOUR dash, apron and part of the roof SAY Journal from Adelaide’s H371 have been your NEXT EASTER? MTM transformed by an enthusiastic It’s A few weeks ago the local paper big workload for members. NEWSTRACK working group into our Visitor ... so let’s be told us that the But it’s the Reception and Sales Area. having you! Shire Council ideal win-win The unit will also form the basis is mustard package. SHIRE of a portable promotional display keen to get Kilmore gets COUNCILLOR for the Museum, the first booking One letter ... tourism back a unique new for which is the Mitchell Shire on the map in attraction in PRAISES Tourism Expo at Wellington Congratulations on your rebranding Kilmore. the shape of Square Shopping Centre at Wallan and in particular the new look And it was an historic MTM BYLANDS for the three-day weekend from Running Journal which we received never marked horse tram Friday 7th May. Support welcome. recently. ‘classified’ that (where else A big step up from the old format Sunday 25th April. Trevor Tobias, the Tramway would you see Mitchell Shire Councillor, paid a and some great information and return visit to MTM Bylands. stories. Museum - let alone ride During a lengthy visit, Councillor PCC 980 ONE STEP This should get the message out that Society and - one of those Tobias quizzed the team on duty TMSV is alive, well and going places! MTM Bylands anywhere about a wide range of topics relating We are looking forward to the next are very keen else that’s to the Museum’s future. NEARER rehab edition. to lift their this close to Running Journal is pleased to report Seen in the picture below in earlier Whilst the trucks are unlikely to be Dave Hinman profiles and get Melbourne?). that Trevor was impressed by the days at Bylands, PCC car 980 may able to provide motive power, having Secretary, Tramway Historical Society, their product And TMSV’s progress now becoming apparent at have taken a first, hesitant step closer proper PCC trucks under 980 will be Christchurch, New Zealand to rehabilitation. a great move forward. better known. aged tram gets MTM. This unique vehicle could soon have Incidentally, the picture below was In fact, we’d out a bit more. He was also clearly happy that the the use of a set of PCC trucks which found on Flickr, to which it had been ... and a thought love to have a Of course future of such a potentially important has been recently relocated to the uploaded by an enthusiast called zed. tram running there’s the tourist attraction is looking so Exhibition Shed. fitzhume and was part of a selection for the month positive. Work will be starting in the coming of over 15,000 photos of trams from again in little matter of Hudson Park accreditation “What a difference from the last weeks on their cosmetic restoration. around the globe. Members might Running Journal was made aware of time I was here,” he said as he left. Interestingly, whilst the trucks like to visit the site at the following comments by another member who by Easter next and business came from Belgium where they were address: http://www.flickr.com/ had expressed, with what might have year. (To save plans and used under a PCC car, they were, in photos/24447011@N02/4271028473/in/ you looking approvals and fact, built in the USA by the Clark pool-ttc been sarcasm, his disappointment at GOT TRAMWAY NEWS Equipment Company, better known We acknowledge zed.fitzhume the late arrival of our last two issues. it up, Good laying tracks TO SHARE? as manufacturers of Michigan Fork and invite him to join TMSV, if not He was also somewhat less than Friday is 22nd and fixing Lifts and earthmoving equipment. already a member. enthusiastic about the ‘glossy’ new April. sheds and PLEASE EMAIL IT TO look, the lack of news about museum That’s less finding horses [email protected] events and the fact that events than a year from what some have ... But hey, it’s not even winter yet! had become historic before their to call ‘this point in time’. And one announcement in RJ. Editor Running Journal is a publication We like to think that we’ve made COPIES OF THE BROCHURE AND APPLICATION FORM [above] of Melbourne Tramway Museum, Running Journal livelier, more AVAILABLE AT MTM BYLANDS or www.tramway.org.au 330 Union Lane, interesting, wider-ranging and more newsful. Bylands Victoria 3762. We agree that timeliness is next to ... well, next to impossible. Please Melbourne Tramway Museum is a remember that many contributors registered business name of have jobs and commitments which the Tramway Museum Society of make deadlines hard to keep. Sorry. Victoria Inc., PO Box 976, As far as TMSV, MTM Bylands and Ringwood VIC 3134, Australia other local content is concerned, ABN 12 739 015 600 you’ll find plenty in this issue. And don’t forget to check the Victorian Registration A0001864E website - www.tramway.org.au - to http://www.tramway.org.au Any old iron? NEW ON BOARD The next time you look around Running Journal Editor, Tony Miles, stay up-to-date on dates, etc.. email: [email protected] has joined the TMSV Board. Tony The Journal welcomes contributions MTM you’ll very likely notice quite brings years of experience in tourism - brickbats as well as bouquets - from Running Journal a few things are missing, gone in the advertising in London and Melbourne. all our members. Pictures, articles, Editor: Tony Miles Big Blitz in late April. He helped tiny Air Jamaica knock letters and comments, cheers and Design: Perceptioneering® British Airways off a key Caribbean Scrap metal, other rubbish and route, had a hand in British Caledonian groans are all gratefully received. email: [email protected] Ed. Bylands’ old Junkyard 101 status. becoming Britain’s joint flag carrier and helped launch SeaCat Tasmania’s

Contact Ru n n i n g Jo u r n a l at Thanks to everybody who turned on duty pioneering wave-piercing catamaran SEND YOUR LETTERS TO: [email protected] up and put in so much hard yakka. services across Bass Strait. [email protected] 2 q Running Journal No. 199 / 2010 Running Journal No. 199 / 2010 q 7 equipment to make the tram go has been obtained from Australia, with some, notably the truck, having to be greatly modified to replicate the original. 100 YEARS OF THE The Society would also be interested in any photographs featuring the Birney trams, and in particular interior shots as none PRAHRAN & MALVERN of these have so far come to light. Photos are invaluable in helping Yet another milestone in Melbourne’s amazing tramway history to identify details essential architecture. for accurate restoration. One The first thirteen trams were particular feature of these trams A-class single-truck drop-end was the “farebox” into which passengers placed their cash or California combination cars built tickets. After the trams finished in Adelaide by Duncan & Fraser, these fareboxes were used for carried on Brill 21E trucks and some years in the replacement painted in a chocolate and cream INVERCARGILL buses. livery. They seated 36 and were While the Society has been able disposed of between 1926 and 1931. to obtain an original farebox, the D&F continued building vehicles stripped nature of tram 15 and for the P&MTT until 1913, adding BIRNEY RE-BORN the lack of photographic evidence classes C to H (Class B, slightly Christchurch’s iconic central the crowded tram was pulled apart means that at this stage we are heavier than the A’s and with twin city tourist tramway has been by souvenir hunters. Here’s how it unsure of its exact location in the 50hp GE motors replacing the latter’s operated by the Tramway Historical was described at the time:- “Most tram. 33hp WH205s, didn’t take to the rails Society since 1995 using old trams of the passengers were young Heritage Tramway Trust until 1916). from Christchurch, Dunedin and and they climbed aboard, armed chairman Dave Carr said the Melbourne. with accordions, banjos and other group was searching throughout Now the City Council is extending musical instruments. It was not New Zealand and Australia the line and more trams are long before a battle for “possession” for parts and equipment. They needed. One is an old Invercargill broke out on the tram. want to hear from anyone who tram, obtained by the Society for Light bulbs, straps, bell cords, might have any fittings, or even restoration many years ago. advertisements and anything else photographs of the tram’s interior. This 1921 model Birney, No. 15 was that could be pulled off the walls “We’re hoping that after 60 years one of six American Birney “Safety” was souvenired. The driver’s some of those people might have trams imported in 1921 to augment seat soon went missing. Even the an attack of their conscience and the Invercargill service, begun in fare box was taken, but this was donate them back.” 1912 with ten “Boon” trams built in returned to the tramways office next Missing are interior fittings, signs, Christchurch.. morning. advertisements, destination rolls, At the time, women were not While the car was travelling down the original passenger seats and permitted to be tram drivers Grace Street a man jumped off a the driver’s seats, Mr Carr said. At the beginning of the last century Wattletree Roads. Photograph courtesy Public Record Office Victoria. (motormen) or even conductors, so following truck and cut the cord While the trams were a standard the communities of Prahran and Kew and Hawthorn joined the the Birneys were the first “one-man holding the pole in position. The design, each operator added their Malvern were expanding fast and network in 1913 but in February 1920 In 1915 P&MTT ceased their safety” trams in New Zealand, with pole flew high in the air and was own touches so the group is keen better transport was seen to be an the Trust was dissolved and control association with Duncan & Fraser no to collect the fares and badly buckled when it hit overhead for the renovation accurately to urgent need. of the 90-tram, 56 km network and after a brief dalliance with several safety features. connections. reflect the Invercargill model. In 1907 the Prahran and Malvern passed to the Melbourne and Meadowbank Engineering in These included air-operated doors For the remainder of the journey General Manager John Rawnsley Tramways Trust Act led to what was Metropolitan Tramways Board. Sydney began producing their own and steps, “dead man handles” and the other pole had to be used, recently visited Christchurch and trolley retrievers. and this reduced the speed. Then, to become Melbourne’s single most Malvern tram depot was opened vehicles at Coldblo Road Workshops, has promised further information extensive tramway undertaking. Malvern. The only other Birneys to reach while it was stopped at Earn Street and photos of No 15’s restoration in in 1910 at Coldblo Road, Malvern. New Zealand were three imported someone souvenired the control the next issue of Running Journal. According to documents in By the early 1920s Duncan & The depot is important not only for the New Plymouth tramways lever - and the tram was stranded the Public Record Office, a body Fraser’s last tram contracts had been to Melbourne but also nationally about the same time as the for half an hour while another lever Any photos will be welcomed by Dave Hinman fulfilled and the Kilkenny site was corporate known as the Prahran because it’s large, intact, still Invercargill order. was sent out from the depot. at the Tramway Historical Society, PO Box 1126, and Malvern Tramways Trust operating and shows us something sold off to Holden Motor Bodies. For the next 30 years the Dozens of packets of confetti CHRISTCHURCH, New Zealand. was ‘created for the purpose All of the P&MTT cars were Invercargill Birneys gave appeared and Mr Waters [the of constructing and operating initially absorbed into the M&MTB faithful service on the City’s four motorman] was liberally doused, (Email: [email protected]) certain electric tramways in the fleet. From the late 1920s until the tram routes - North and South as were all aboard ... a large paper municipalities of Prahran and 1950s single-truck and bogie vehicles Invercargill (linked as Route “A”) bag of flour was thrown through Malvern.’ were sold off to the provincial and Waikiwi (shortened back to the door and exploded inside, In 1910, the Trust was reconstituted tramways in Geelong, Ballarat and Gladstone in 1947) and Georgetown showering all near the front of the to include representatives of the Bendigo. Many survived intact (linked as Route “B”). car with a covering of flour. Councils of St Kilda and Caulfield. until the end of these systems and a Then in the early 1950s when the Half an hour later the new lever The Trust consisted of five members, number are now in preservation at trams were on their way out, being was fitted but progress was slow one each from the four constituent MTM Bylands and elsewhere. replaced by buses, No. 15, on 31 on the journey back to the depot. councils and the Chairman. The P&MTT was a worthy May 1952, was the last tram to South Without lights the tram made its The first lines were opened on progenitor of what is now recognised Invercargill. Just over 2 miles long, way to journey’s end.” May 30, 1910: from Charles Street significant about the formative years as perhaps the world’s leading this was the southern-most tram It was a fitting tribute to the last Prahran to Tooronga Road via High of electric tramways in this country. tramway network. line in the world. tram on the service,” said Mr Street and the other from High Street Finally, it’s a strange and interesting And it all got rolling one hundred It was also No. 15’s last run, and Waters, the motorman, surveying on the way back from the terminus the tram in the depot. Replacement to Burke Road via Glenferrie and example of Edwardian industrial years ago on May 30th.

4 q Running Journal No. 199 / 2010 Running Journal No. 199 / 2010 q 5 W3 BACK FROM WW2 Things got moving at MTM Bylands on March 24th, when W3 667 was delivered back home after spending some years in W IS FOR ... Melbourne, during which time it participated in the filming of Steven Spielberg’s TV series about WW2, “The Pacific” (Channel 7) in February 2008. (Clips can be seen on YouTube. Ed.)

Leaving Preston Workshop at about 9am, W3 667 arrived at 10am with towering cranes to place it on our tracks in tow. After a tight U-turn in the visitors’ car park the lift operation was quick and seamless, with 667 lifted by two cranes, one supporting each truck. The truck then drove out from under 667 and the cranes lowered it onto our tracks, where she now sits gracefully.

As we had cranes at the Melbourne Tramway Museum, we seized the opportunity to move two Belgian PCC trucks to road two of the Exhibition Shed. The trucks - which were acquired from - will now be cleaned and prepared to have M&MTB's prototype PCC The Melbourne end of Memphis, Tennessee Photo courtesy Gomaco 980, lifted atop them, marrying 980 with PCC trucks for the first How about ... “Wow!”? very elegant in its electric blue livery Gomaco Corporation, a world leader time in almost 40 years. Aesthetic It’s amazing what can happen to a at the Melbourne end of Memphis, in equipment for the concrete paving restoration work can then be Melbourne tram once it crosses the Tennessee. (And Car 553 has a touch industry. performed on 980 inside the Pacific. And especially north over the of green in the picture down below). Gomaco has restored trams from all Exhibition Shed, and 667 will find Equator. All thanks to Gomaco Trolley over the world, including no fewer a new home inside Shed Two. For a start, it ceases being a than 71 Peter Witt cars from tram. Up there, it’s a trolley. Or Milan. It also builds replicas, should we call it a streetcar? 18 of which are of Birney cars W3 667 was built in 1934 What’s more, it can strut the to run in Florida, Tennessee, during the Depression at Preston streets of Memphis in shades North Carolina and Arkansas. Workshops, in a run of only 16 that would be looked on as Four faithful reproductions cars. The W3 series was built something shocking down of the 500 series car on a tight budget with recycled here below the waist of the manufactured by J.G.Brill running gear and a plywood roof. world. But heaven knows, Company for the Portland Despite the budget they were the anything goes way up there. Traction Company in the early first steel-framed trams built by (And blue is a colour we can 1900s are now operating in the M&MTB. It has been with all associate with Memphis, downtown Portland, Oregon. the Society since 1976 and was the home of Elvis, whose cover Learn a lot more about Gomaco the first tram to operate under of Carl Perkins’s Blue Suede at www.gomacotrolley.com. Shoes is the version we all Tony Miles power at the Melbourne Tramway remember.) Museum. Liam Davies Mind you, those cheeky yellow Company of Ida Grove, Iowa which R u nning RUNS SIX JOURNA L French guys (aka Citadis 302s) we’ve builds and restores tramcars with TIMES A YEAR The TMSV would like to thank the borrowed from Mulhouse certainly the precision and craftsmanship of people at Preston Workshop, Victorian add a flash of je ne sais quoi cruising yesteryear and the benefits of today’s Tell Department of Transport, L Arthur the Paris end of Collins Street. more advanced technology. people Transport Services and Associated But, traditional or not, car 455 looks The company is an offshoot of about it Mobile Cranes for their help. Photo: Liam Davies

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