Australian
Screen

Teacher’s notes

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This silent black-and-white clip shows newsreel coverage of the conversion to electric power of a cable tram system in Melbourne. It shows work commencing on tracks on Victoria Parade, including shots of a mechanical pothole digger excavating holes for the power poles, and men installing the poles. A new electric tram is shown, as well as an old cable tram making its way down Collins Street. The clip includes intertitles critical of the tram conversion, for example one describes electrification as the ‘spoliation’ of the cable system.

Educational value points

• In the 1920s Melbourne’s cable tramway system, which was wearing out and did not have the capacity for increased passenger loads, began to be ripped up and new tracks and overhead powerlines for electric trams were installed. While most cable routes had been replaced by electric trams by the 1930s, the Great Depression temporarily slowed work and the final cable line was not closed until 1940.

• The old tramway system was a patchwork of privately operated cable trams and mainly council-run electric trams. However, in 1920 the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB), a state government body, took over operation of the whole system and began to modernise and extend it.

• While some people opposed the new electric trams on the grounds that they would be noisy and an eyesore, the clip’s clear bias may represent the views of private operators who lost out when the government took control of the system. Alternatively, it may simply represent sadness over the passing of cable trams.

• The ‘16 Ton Juggernauts’ referred to in the clip were the distinctive W-class trams that the MMTB introduced in 1923 to replace the mismatched assortment of trams it inherited when it took over the tramway system. Variants of the W-class tram were the mainstay of the Melbourne tramway system for 60 years and have been promoted as a symbol of the only remaining Australian city with an extensive tram system. W-class trams are still in use.

• Melbourne’s cable tramway system began operating in 1885 with the opening of the Spencer Street to Richmond line. By 1920 the system consisted of 17 routes through inner suburban Melbourne, including 75 km of double track and 1,200 cars, arguably the most extensive cable system in the world. Infrastructure for the system was built by local councils and then leased to the privately run Melbourne Omnibus Company.

• Cable trams ran on moving cables that were enclosed in tunnels 1.2 m below the road. The cables ran in two directions and were powered by large steam engines kept in powerhouses. Each tram had two sections, the open ‘dummy’ at the front and a closed car behind. The dummy housed the grip mechanism that the driver or ‘gripman’ used to attach or detach the tram from the moving cable. The driver released the grip on the cable and applied the brake to stop the tram.

• The clip is taken from an item in an Australian newsreel called Australasian (formerly Australian) Gazette, a weekly compilation of film reports on current events shown in cinemas before the main film. Newsreels were a chief source of audiovisual news prior to the advent of television in 1956. Cinema programs usually included an international and a locally produced newsreel, each of which was about 12 minutes in length. Early newsreels were silent but often used intertitles.

• The cable tramway and later electric tramway system contributed to the growth of Melbourne. Trams provided affordable public transport, which encouraged worker mobility. The resulting growth of suburbia included the introduction of shopping strips along tram routes. Mass transportation promoted the development of Melbourne’s central business district and influenced its cultural and sporting life.