MELBOURNE, VIC. — Australia’s first electric tram began operating in Melbourne on October 14, 1889, running between the Box Hill Post Office on the corner of Whitehorse Road and Station Street and the terminus near the intersection of Elgar and Doncaster Roads, Doncaster.
It was also the first electric tram in the Southern Hemisphere. Box Hill and Doncaster were significant fruit-growing areas in Victoria at the time, so the line was well patronised.
However, once the Union Electric Company’s contract to operate the line ceased, financial difficulties prevented the Tramway Company, which took it over, from addressing problems that had arisen with the underpowered cars, which frequently broke down. The service continued to operate for several years, but was abandoned in January 1896.
The city of Melbourne, the second-largest city in Australia, boasts the third-largest tram network in the world, consisting of 245 kilometres of track, 500 trams, and 1770 tram stops.
In 1885, the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company began operating Melbourne’s first cable tram line. The first service ran from Spencer St/Flinders St to Hawthorn Bridge. As the city grew, the technical limits of the cable tram system became apparent, and electric trams were developed and implemented.
It was not until October 1906 that another electric tram service opened. Trams still run extensively in Melbourne, as its wide streets and geometric street pattern make this mode of transport more practical than in other cities.
In Adelaide, the capital of South Australia, one tramline operates, originating from the city centre and terminating at Glenelg, and some trams still run in the old gold rush city of Bendigo.
