Re: Trolley wheels/carbon skids on Melb trams

[pcc@ocean.com.au (Les Brown)]

Dave McL <davemcl@REMOVEiprolink.co.nz> wrote in aus.rail:

>Les Brown wrote:
>
>> When I was about 10 years old, we lived above a Milk Bar in Waverley
>> Road, East Malvern. A favourite pastime was watching the trams go past
>> on a Saturday morning from a bedroom window that fronted the road. It
>> was around 1961-1962 when I noticed the change from trolley wheels to
>> carbon skids, the height of the window made this observation very
>> easy. It did not take very long for the change to occur - probably no
>> more than six months. It was also around this time that the Sunday 3D
>> tram service was "busified".
>
>When was it changed back to trams, Les? I noted on my last visit to
>Melbourne that all three bustified Sunday lines (East Malver, West
>Maribyrnong and Footscray-Moonee Ponds) were using trams again after all
>those years. I presume the change back came about with the driver-only
>trams Kennett brought in after he was elected? Or was it before, after
>the Great Tram Strike?
>
I really don't know, Dave. My guess is that it happened when the buses
were seperated from the MET and became a corporation in their own
right. Together with single crew manning and, I would imagine, a
higher charge rate of hiring any buses, it probably became cheaper to
run the trams rather than the buses. I'm sure others here can be far
more accurate than I.

Les Brown