Re: Saviour of Melbourne's trams [was Re: Official launch in Bendigo of restored Sydney tram R 1808

["William Pearce" <ben_issacs@optusnet.com.au>]

    Re large tramway networks. It would seem to me that there are only three
ways in which the size of a tramway system could be measured, (a) route
kilometres (b) track kilometres, (c) number of cars.  Melb's  route km, from
'Destination City' and allowing for extensions since the date of publication
would be a bit over 250km, I reckon. I won't consider (b),  and number of
cars in service now (all Ws except Restaurants out), maybe 450.
  I have a 1996 publication from the Prague Public Transit Co. saying that
the 23 'day' route system there has a 'length of network 494km', this sounds
like track kms., and number of cars out in morning peak 668. From the number
of cars point of view, Prague is larger than Melb., and it must be pretty
close in route kms., halving the track km. figure quoted above could give a
crude approximation to route kms.
    Another big system which I don't have any up-todate information on, is
Budapest.
    Figures quoted for tram system sizes must always be a bit contentious,
even 'Jane's Urban Transport' doesn't seem to be consistent in quoting
system lengths, sometimes they seem to give route distances, other times
track distances.
    Also, which is the bigger system, one with a route km. figure of 40 and
four cars, and one with the same route km. and  forty cars?  Perhaps the
comparison should be made on a ' car-km' figure, being the product of the
number of cars multiplied by the route kilometres.
                                                                    Regards,

Bill.


"Graeme Cleak" <gcleak@optusnet.com.au> wrote in message
3a506b08$0$7504$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au">news:3a506b08$0$7504$7f31c96c@news01.syd.optusnet.com.au...
> I believe the Terminal Platform at Elizabeth Street Terminus is named
after
> Sir Robert Risson, and has a plaque or similar, attached.
>
> --
> Graeme Cleak
>
> David McLoughlin <davemcl@NO***damned***SPAMiprolink.co.nz> wrote in
message
> 3a50300a@news.iprolink.co.nz">news:3a50300a@news.iprolink.co.nz...
> > David McLoughlin wrote:
> >
> > >  Sir Robert Risson was chairman or deputy chairman of the MMTB from
> > > 1949 until 1970.
> >
> > On reconsulting my records and books, I can affirm that Major General
> > Sir Robert Risson was *chairman* of the MMTB from 1949 to 1970.
> > Twenty-one years in which he fought off the anti-tram tide and kept the
> > huge Melbourne system going in the face of odds that destroyed scores of
> > tramway systems elsewhere.
> >
> > > Melbourne's tramway system is the greatest possible monument to Sir
> > > Robert Risson.
> >
> > He is without doubt the man who saved Melbourne's great tramway system,
> > one of the world's greatest tramway systems and by far the biggest
> > tramway in any English-speaking country (and in non-English speaking
> > ones, only Sankt Petersburg and Wien are bigger, and Milano is fourth in
> > size behind Melbourne).
> >
> > Please go back up the thread if the above confuses you.
> >
> > David McLoughlin
> > Auckland New Zealand
>
>