Re: Trams are Cars?

[Peter Deighan <s1440217@student.anu.edu.au>]

Dave McL wrote:
> 
> Johann Fan wrote:
> 
> > Noticed recently that trams and tram services are called 'cars'
> 
> Tramcars.  In the US they are streetcars.
> 
> When I was a kid growing up in Melbourne, the signs at tram stops read
> "hail cars here" for request stops and "cars stop here" for compulsory
> stops. They were changed to "tram stop" about the time the Zs began
> entering service in the mid-1970s. The original "tram stop" signs even
> had a stylised Z on them.
> 
> David McLoughlin
> Auckland New Zealand
Picking up a theme elsewhere on this ng, re rampant Americanization 
(note humorous use of 'z') of australia:

The reason they were called cars was that the melbourne cable system was 
originally laid down by yanks.  IFIRC, francis boardman clapp was one of 
the gentleman.  So they used american terminology.  
Thus cars, not trams.

Source: "Mind the curve".
 But as it was over a hundred years ago, I don't think it is cultural
imperialism now.

The signs always used to confuse me when I was a liittle tacker.  
We lived well beyond the tram radius, so whenever we went into town, I
would wonder 
what hailing meant, and why people would want to do it to what I
understood cars 
to be, ie motorcars.  An example of how the public transport system in
the 60s did not 
have a customer focus?  ie its signs only made sense if you knew what
they were trying to say

deegz