An excellent photograph of the former East Preston terminus; one of the few I have seen of an R/Q (later G?) glass tram in normal rather than all night service.
Another excellent R/Q view (taken in the Dandenong Road reservation) appears in the forthcoming book on the Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust.
It's interesting to note in the East Preston photo the white-topped caps on the crew. Was this part of the MMTB uniform of the time?
Bringing the story more up to date, the area around the former East Preston terminus has become rather dingy with most of the shops closed. Although Melbourne does retain many areas of "strip" shopping particularly along trams routes (e.g. Glenferrie Road) most of the local shopping precincts have succumbed to the expansion of the drive-in centres. For instance, East Preston is close to Northland.
Many of the shops that remain away from the thriving "strips" have been "gentrified" (e.g. High Street, Armadale) or taken over by small business practices (e.g. accountants or architects). Other such as East Preston are semi-derelict. The expansion of the coffee culture has resulted in a revitalisation of some local precincts (e.g. Westgarth). Even the humble Australian milk bar has generally succumbed to the 7/11 style convenience store or more likely in the tramway suburbs, the retail side of service stations. But there has been change with service stations too; there are nowhere as many now (along tram lines) as there were with the redevelopment of valuable building sites.
Back to the North Balwyn route, it is a terminus with no retail activity. Even the crew use (per arrangement with Yarra Trams) the lavatory facilities of a local church. Closer in, at the corner of Burke Road, is one of the very early "car park" supermarkets (Coles) and across the road a "Magic [hand] Car Wash" in an abandoned service station.
There has been a big expansion of bus services in the Doncaster area (DART) with 15 minute frequencies on several routes. The loadings are very slowly building up. One would presume that the slow take up of the expanded bus services in an area where people prefer to drive their cars would put any extension of the North Balwyn tram route on hold for a long, long time.
This is all part of the changing face of the Melbourne tramway environment that sadly too few people are recording in picture. The heavy road traffic most of the day makes taking tram photos in Melbourne a risky and unpredictable enterprise; however, thanks to Mal (Rowe), Yuri (Sos) and John (Wayman) we do get a good representation here on TDU.
MMTB817
--- InTramsDownUnder@..., "david_mcloughlin_melbourne" <mcloughlin.dj@...> wrote:
>
>
> Mal Rowe wrote:
>
> >
> > Here's a rather stunning pic of the Tyler St, (East Preston) terminus in
> > early days.
> > http://tdu.to/TylerSt_EastPreston_DarebinLibrary_lhrn1790.jpg
> >
> > As the file name says, it's from City of Darebin library.
> > That line certainly looks to have been 'developmental'!
>
>
> From what I read in various archives years ago as a schoolkid in Melbourne, the North Balwyn extension was into paddocks when it was opened about 1938.
>
> A Bracks painting from that time (one of his earliest) shows a W2 tram at the terminus there in a rural like area.
>
> Thankfully, the old Tyler St terminus has been much extended and now runs to Bundoora. Sadly, the North Balwyn terminus remains the same as in 1938, despite extension at least to Doncaster Shoppingtown having been justified even before the several extensions of the Tyler St line since the early 1980s.
>
> From my personal observations, very few people even use the 48 nowadays from Kew to the terminus, a huge drop in patronage since the early 1970s when I rode it regularly. Were the line extended to Shoppingtown, there would be considerable new patronage, as shown by the very good patronage on the 109 to and from Box Hill and Kew since its extension to Box Hill from the similarly (to the 48) nowhere terminus of Mont Albert.
>
> Trams need to go somewhere at both ends of the line.
>
> david, disappointed
>