That’s fine. You are wise to use the TV as their screens seem to give a sharper picture compared with computer and portable screens.

😊👍. 🚙🚗 enemies of good public transport.

Yes, a quieter and easier way of life then.

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Mykothy All big cities in the world once had tramways and quite a lot of smaller places as well. Rockhampton even had steam trams from 1919 to 1939. Brisbane in fact had electric trams years before Melbourne did but like most cities in the English speaking world, trams went out of fashion starting in the 1930s and continuing into the 1970s. Not many tramways close these days.

@@tressteleg1 It is known fact that trams are the most popular form of public transport. A great shame that Brisbane did away with them. One of the biggest mistakes (I think it was) Clem Jones ever made. As to Melbourne, they can thank my fathers cousin, Maj-General Sir Robert Risson, for keeping them. He was head of the Melbourne Metropolitan Tramways Board at the time, and there was a push down there to remove them, and as I understand it he went and had a good part of track network cemented in to make it harder and costlier to remove.

Unfortunately I don’t think anyone has ever done a survey investigating WHY people prefer riding trams. As for Melbourne, no doubt Sir Robert’s staunch belief in trams was a definite factor in their retention but if the government were determined to get rid of them, that would have happened. Some fans have said that one reason trams survived was that the prominent National Party in the Victorian state government would not spend the money on purchasing new buses for the city of Melbourne, and that it was cheaper to retain the trams. Whatever the reasons, Melbourne is fortunate to have retained its tramway.

Well you can thank Clem Jones for their scrapping. And the present mob in City Hall are making sure trams stay banished. What could be more ridiculous than a bus (Non) Metro?

@@tressteleg1 Sadly, it is now 50 years since the system was shut down. Clem Jones engaged Texan urban planner Wilbur Smith who recommended scrapping the trams and building freeways and other car friendly roadways (as per American practice in the fifties/ sixties), which has only led to increasing traffic congestion and urban frustration. I am glad that I "'escaped " Brisbane and moved back north .

When you want to reach a certain goal, and blame somebody else in the process, you hire a consultant who will give you the answer you want. Sydney did the same by hiring London transport in the 1950s, and you know what they had just achieved!

@@tressteleg1 Presumably, these "consultants" received some nice inducements from the car industry etc? ... or where they misguided??

London transport had just scrapped their trams. Nobody would believe they would tell somebody else they should keep theirs. I have no doubt that Wilbur Smith already had a clear track record showing they always recommend tram replacements. So you know you will get the answers you seek. No bribery required.

Thanks for your comment. I’m also on the coast and regularly ride the tram. While it is a good service, I feel it is spoilt by long winded announcements often played too loud on some trams. I tried to do something about it this week, but the official answer amounted to being fobbed off. Pity a few others don’t complain.

@@tressteleg1 I agree about the announcements, that’s for sure.

Well a previous email did say that when I am riding a tram with speakers too loud, I should phone and complain then and there. 1800 064 928

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And it had it's own electricity department as well and it ran at a profit, they had workshops spread across Brisbane, now they sell em off to their mates

In the game Monopoly, Never sell your utilities! Never sell the "Goose that Lays the Golden Egg."

Politicians will do anything with just short-term gains even if long-term is bad, just to buy votes. I think we are seeing a bit of that at the moment as well.

My main thought about Clem Jones is that he should’ve died 40 years earlier. Nevertheless by the 1950s and 60s, English speaking countries saw trams as being an old-fashioned idea which held up the traffic so whoever was in power sooner or later would have scrapped the trams to make Brisbane look modern. But of course Melbourne gets the last laugh having remained old fashioned in those dark years.

aye lad. 2020 vision.

It’s great to hear from guys whose younger days memories are stirred by my productions. It makes the work worthwhile.

@@tressteleg1 You can add me to that list also. Great videos of the Brisbane trams which I actually did get to ride a few times as a young feller in late 1968 when visiting from Melbourne. Just as well I did because they were gone the next year. Can't believe how fast the last 50 years have flown. Cheers from.an Aussie expat in Indonesia.

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If you can stream these videos through a big TV the good quality will look even better!

Yes, people actually kept their eyes open in those days and rarely got hurt. We can thank Clem Jones for destroying the tram system.

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You can thank Clem Jones for that. Unfortunately however, replacing trams with buses was fashionable in the English speaking world from the 1930s to sometime in the 1970s, more or less.

@@tressteleg1 but they still operate in Melbourne.

True, different owners. And of course there are a few other exceptions to that rule. But the vast majority of systems in the English speaking world were gone by 1975.

If only tears would bring them back!

+Russell Anderson Unfortunately starting in the 1930s and especially in the English speaking world and in France, trams were considered old-fashioned, noisy etc. So the trend was towards ‘modern flexible buses’ being adopted. It was not until the early 1980s that especially the USA and France realised the folly of their earlier decisions as buses could not cope and people don’t seem to like riding them anyway. However the standards of today make the construction excessively expensive and slow and meaning that former systems like Sydney and Brisbane had in the past will never come back unfortunately, And there is no will to build anything in Brisbane anyway at present.

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+ Thanks. I’m happy how it turned out. Having been to Melbourne the year before, I was somewhat impressed with Brisbane. Trams flew around curves whereas Melbourne trams shuddered slowly around corners. And Brisbane also had resilient wheels, silent helical gears and led with fluorescent lights which were being retrofitted to earlier trams. 548 at Loftus captures some of the atmosphere,

Yes ,I think we had a number of superelevated curves on the system here. There was one on a sharp bend in Wynnum Road,Norman Park near Balmoral Cemetary were some years ago the traffic lanes were reconfigured so they would follow the line and bank of the tramlines underneath to improve cornering for motorists.

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All so true but I did not know its use post power production.

@@tressteleg1 There was a boatyard/ caravan park across Doboy Creek from the power station and all the canvas annexes used to rot out because of the soot come from the boiler chimneys

RGC198 Possibly the most modern in the world at the time.

The fleet and system was deliberately run down with much of the modern trams lost , several hundred in one of the huge depots about 1962. The last ten new trams, Phoenix class were put together in 63-64, but basically a lot of old reserve trams of the 1915 era, race and cricket specials were back in service for the 62-68 years diminishing the attraction. Loadings on the system were huge, in say 63-4 it would have 4 X the total tram patronage in all NZ cities in 1944 peak patronage . Auckland's system was minor with completely obsolete trams in comparison. By 1955 Brisbane system was completely relaid in concrete block mounting with modern trams running, far more modern than Melbourne. Part of the reason Melbourne never abandoned teams, is it was considered too disruptive to ever take the system out, combined with the fact Melbourne was still in 1936 in 1976 and the trams had only replaced cable cars on most Melbourne routes in 1930-1940 so Melbourne was the last big city to introduce old fashioned traditional trams, 50 years after NY and London. But Melbourne trams had more modern electric systems than any other tramway from the start and it was the old electrics which often condemned many great tram and trolley bus systems. It was a factor even in the closure of the Wellington trolley bus system in 2017. The decline and destruction of Brisbane's great team system was more straightforward. Pure criminal Philistine vandalism by the local political leaders.

I can’t give a precise answer but it is unwise to number transport routes anywhere 1 2 3 4 etc. It was not unusual to have short workings on some lines in the peak hour. So if the outer terminus were 70, a shortworking could be 71, for example, while if a line is extended, it could be 73, 75 or whatever and with all being in the 70s, riders are less likely to be confused than if the shortworking number were far removed from the normal terminus. Melbourne is the same.

+Mauro Morganti Thanks! It’s great that you rate it that highly but I would not charge even if I could. Comments like this of yours make the hours of work worth while. In the pipeline at present are movies of the opening weekend and train parade for the Brisbane rail electrification opening 1979, and quite a few scenes of Tait trains in Melbourne. However vintage Aussie movie is fast running out. Anyway if I don’t share it, all the video and movie film is likely to go to the dump when I die.

hope to make you happy I just share this treasure on my FB page and I will pray the good Lord to give you long life

+Mauro Morganti ☺️😉😄

+Colonel Leon Yes. I am sure other viewers will be interested although the video does show 548 and the caption says that it is now at that museum. I have been a member of it since 1964.

Unfortunately tram scrapping in the English speaking world was the ‘modern’ thing to do from the 1930s to the 80s.

It was the American consultants Wilbur Smith who Clem Jones engaged to make a transport plan for Brisbane. They of course considered trams to be obsolete and freeways and road widening to be the future because public transport in the U.S. was fast becoming a thing of the past. How wrong they were with trams making a comeback all over the World. (Most European cities wisely didn't follow the U.S. path)

I always thought that design of logo was called a steeple cab. As for the other shoe-like loco, I have no idea if the crews had a nickname for it. After all, that was 50 years ago now.

i do think the steeple cab loco name is fair enough. the clown shoe shaped loco may have a practical reason for its shape. it wasn't designed by raymond lowy. it looks like a clown shoe to me.

@@tressteleg1 It was used to haul coal wagons from the station at Murrarie or Queensport to the coal fired power station at what they call Bulimba power station, the railway line is still there and is just on the southern approach to the Gateway Bridges, therail line also ran down to Austral Pacific where a lot of fertilizer traffic was handled but the electric locos were purely for coal handling to the power station, see my other comment here

I only went there that one day. I had to wait hours for them to finish servicing the newer loco before they went down to get the coal hoppers seen.

Unfortunately from especially the early 1950s, replacing trams with ‘modern flexible buses’ was the fashion, no doubt prompted by London just having done so. Some say the Victorian Government of those days was to stingy to buy new buses so let itself be stuck with the trams - thankfully!

Yes the city has changed, not just the absence of the trams. Rarely is there appealing music on any occasional video which I may watch, so I leave mine silent so viewers can listen to their own music of choice. Nevertheless the ‘average viewer’ watches for less than 10 minutes.

At that time, some described Brisbane as a large country town. It certainly had more of that feeling. Scrapping trams anywhere does nothing to improve the patronage of public transport. Many former tram users end up driving their cars rather than putting up with buses. And yes, The cop uniforms were brown and I think may still be in the Northern Territory.

Nice to bring back some memories for you!

Small world 😊

Yep. And it was years before buses got air con.

700gsteak You can blame bloody Clem Jones or that.

In Brisbane there is no interest at all by the present city council to have trams running anywhere. The so-called planned ‘Metro’ is little more than double articulated diesel buses running on existing busways. The Gold Coast Tram is 65km away but does not impress the Brisbane council even though some citizens are calling for trams.

For some years, at least in the 1940s an 1950s they wore silver paint. But it took a lot of work to keep them looking good. So late 50s or early 60s it was decided that grey sort-of looks a bit the same, so the change was made. Adelaide H class were also silver but a few went grey about 1970 before the old Brown colour was used again. I preferred silver.

Yes, it was. Silver looked nicer.

+Barry Campbell Northwest of the city, a little above Bardon. Branched of near the Valley.

Sorry, what I meant was "Where was it on the footage". I know it well from travelling on it in 1966 and living in Ashgrove in 1985 as well as having 2 of my children living in The Gap. It must have been a squeeze getting trams down the old narrow Waterworks Road.

+Barry Campbell Unfortunately I took no movie of the Ashgrove line. At the most, I have just one or two photos. I only made three short visits to Brisbane, the last being the last three days of operation so it was not possible to film everywhere. Additionally, in today’s money, the film cost at least $11 per minute to take. That is why scenes tend to be short. Maybe the line is covered in another video somewhere.

tressteleg1 u can get DVDs that cover the trams 2 parts

You can’t have looked very hard. Unless you refer to the open centre sections. That was the Air Conditioning in the 1920 and earlier. The climate is quite mild compared to most places in the world. There are canvas blinds when it gets cold or wet.

Well we can thank Clem Jones for their demise but as tram scrapping in the English speaking world was the modern thing to do in those days I suppose that sooner or later some other fool would have done the same. You are lucky to have experienced them. I suppose you have been to the Ferny Grove Museum.

When it was called the Police Force not Police Service and a lot of people still aren't happy about the change

Frank Kopke It was the lord mayor of Brisbane, Clem Jones, who many people hate for closing the Brisbane Tramway. Former tram riders loved the buses so much that many instead drove their cars and those that could, caught the train. That increase in patronage was probably a factor in electrifying the suburban railways just 10 years later. When you have the infrastructure, it can be modernised but once it is gone, it is usually gone forever.