Maybe the only other challenger for nicest route would be the 58 as it meanders through Royal Park.

You might be surprised how much of the world does drive on the left, besides Britain, Australia and New Zealand, Japan India and probably some other former British colonies also drive on the left.

@@tressteleg1 I know, but in these countries i have been only in Britain and Australia. It is olways a nice memory to these holidays.

😊

Thanks! And it would look best on a smart TV compared with a computer or phone screen.

Swanston Street with 8 tram routes almost certainly is the world record, especially considering all of them operate quite frequently.

@@tressteleg1 If you make it Swanston St / St Kilda Rd, you can include route 58 which has the bit between Park St & Toorak Rd which brings it up to 9

I only count all the lines in the one place. Don’t forget that the 1 has left St Kilda Rd before the 58 joins in, even if they later cross at Sturt St and Kingsway.

@@tressteleg1 Ah yep. Swanston St with 8 routes - I was being greedy 🙂

I did check the map before writing 8. Maybe that will drop by one or two when they build the missing link through Park Street linking up the 58 with the 1.

😊👍. Too bad it is so darn slow. Nights and Sunday mornings we used to do a round trip in 90 minutes. Not any more ☹️☹️

@@tressteleg1 that 96 tram... way, way, back in the day ( late 70's) was where I got to drive a tram late one Sunday evening, from Spring St, all the way down Bourke St !!! ( Thanks to dating a tram driver at the time 😅 ) And that's where my love of trams grew. Unfortunately I never got to drive one ever again...but that was sooo cool !!!

Nothing like a ‘sly drive’ to kindle an interest in trams. 🤗. I started getting sly drives from friends who were drivers from the mid 1960s and when I became a driver in 1988 I occasionally let friends drive when I knew they would appreciate it, but never in the city! The outer end of West Preston was probably the best place, but with supervision so tight these days, and risk of being sacked so likely, I have not had a drive since about 2001. check KZfaq for ‘Keeping my hand in with a Z3 in Melbourne’.

@@tressteleg1 thanks , I shall. I do admit that I think the only reason we go away with it was it was late on a Sunday evening, and apart from the driver, and the guy I was dating, I don't recall any other passengers. The class of tram I drove was the same as on the City Circle these days. The kind that had that special "handle/ ratchet" that the driver removed from one end of the tram and then took to the other. The push buttons these days make it look ( on occasion) quite boring. But considering how many " new fangled" bells and whistles, ( pardon the pun)...let alone cameras, mirrors and other controls on the new trams, they are far more complicated, and I take my hat off to the modern breed of driver !

You can say what you want, the good old W Class are the best trams that Melbourne had👍 A good video but a very slow ride.

Thanks, but it is amazing to think the conversion was done about 35 years ago, and I was driving it a year later!

All the trams of this type are now called W8 class and are very heavily rebuilt earlier W types, so are largely new trams that look much like they did in the past.

@@tressteleg1 Oh . Thanks .

The 12 was an interesting line to drive as even in the peak hour after leaving Clarendon Street there was never any problem with road traffic. Also it passed through an attractive neighbourhood.

Anything can happen anywhere but the risk of injuries like from rock throwing on public transport are very low, and could happen when in a car just as easily.

Yes this one was an E1 (except Luna Park to the terminus). It is a bit hard to judge, but the E1 pillars are about twice as wide as those of the E2. If you watch the passing trams, you may be able to see the difference. E2s start at 6051.

😊👍

Yes frustratingly slow now.

@@tressteleg1 i sensed your frustration during the video.

When I stay in Melbourne, I get accommodation in Saint Kilda so I tend to use this line occasionally. Just a shadow of what it was when I drove it.

@@tressteleg1 And over the years I am sure you have experienced many differences since when you drove that line

Besides new trams, there are more traffic lights, few extra ‘7 second’ T lights and padding out of the timetable. I will have some harsh words to say on that with Tram 58 Part 4.

I was driving on the 96 at that general time - I hope you did not get onto my tram, but I did see an older boy wet his pants on a W once.

@@tressteleg1 My grandparents lived on Canterbury road at the time so my Mum probably cleaned me off there

Well that’s fortunate but these things can happen with little kids.

You should not be judging all of Australia just by Melbourne‘s performance. Take a look at the Gold Coast or Canberra light rail. Regarding speed limits, yes I believe that health and safety have gone mad. I used to drive the line around 1990 when we had the B class, and end to end journey time in the evening was 40 minutes. Nowadays the best you will see is 48 minutes for the same trip. All sorts of speed restrictions have been introduced by the bureaucrats, Melbourne still has no tram traffic light priority, and on top of that a ridiculous aspect of the contracting of the tram operations to Keolis provides bonus payments for OnTime operation, and to facilitate this, running times have been slowed down to make late running almost impossible and thus bonus payments mostly guaranteed. I would like to know which Tramway in Britain does 80 mph. I’m sure it’s not Sheffield, apart from what the tram train operation may do, nor Nottingham, and you should also take a look at Blackpool trams trundling along etc. Parts of Manchester may have these speeds, but I don’t expect that would be with low floor trams.

@@tressteleg1 The trams in Sheffield are known as train trams because they use the railway lines as well and therefore have to get up to line speed, which on a lot of local lines is anything between 80/100 mph. I have also noted that watching videos such as your own, plus others on your local trains, they seem to have a speed limit of 80 kph or 50mph, where as our local trains regularly travel between 80/100mph. You might want to check out Don Coffey's video's on train and trams around Manchester to see for yourself what a difference there is in the speed of our local transport systems to yours. I have still to understand how different districts, ( as you have stated in your video's) can limit the speed of trams and traffic to ridiculously low speeds, besides the fact that they seem to allow very little priority for the tram system. You would never see any of the tramways in the U.K. waiting for the lengths of time they have yours waiting, it's diabolical. I love your videos and get a lot of enjoyment from watching them and seeing how the other side of the world approaches public transport and I do like the fact that on certain areas of the network you dont have to pay, something they should think about here. Looking forward to your next video to hopefully see some more parts of Melbourne or Sydney. Regards Frank.

Trams which have to run on railway lines are in an entirely different category. I am aware of the Sheffield tram-trains which took years of bureaucratic dithering before they finally got running, and expect that they have to be fast enough not to delay trains. Those should not be confused with city trams which rarely go faster than 80km/h. Manchester is also different having high floor vehicles and a very high percentage of their track used to be rail lines. So I expect them to be faster than city trams. As for Melbourne, I have for decades seen it as a place with considerable potential which never gets realised. Total lack of tram priority at lights is my biggest, but not only, gripe. Last Wednesday near sunset I recorded a run on my local Gold Coast line and I am editing that now. It shows Melbourne up. You will see it here in a couple of weeks.

@@tressteleg1 can't wait for that, cheers Frank

The trip was around midday. The ride was certainly pathetic compared with how my workmates and I drove that line around 1990. However the problem could be the 0PR, or Operational Performance Regime. Every line has many time points and if a tram departs any of these more than 59 seconds early, Yarra will cop a fine. The government apparently thinks being precisely on time is better than a ride which flows with the traffic, sometimes being a bit early and sometimes being a bit late. Too bad for the passenger who feels he could walk home quicker.

@@tressteleg1 well... that would make more scene, thanks for clarification

The idea was good because the old train route to St Klida or Port Melbourne was very short. The only thing what is not good are the speed limits today.

I rode the train in the peak hour a few times before the conversion, and hardly anybody rode it. Not long after the conversion I was working on the 96 and it was carrying a lot more people than the trains ever carried. Main difference was the train dumped you at the tip of Fitzroy Street, where is the tram took you much further to Acland Street which obviously the riders preferred.

@@tressteleg1 but now with more people living in the bayside areas the trains would fill up in peak

Maybe, but even so it is still a bus ride first. So instead of trains, the trams take them to town, and if their destination is near Bourke st, they are better off, or the 16 takes them up Swanston St.