Noel,
I have a photo titled "Night Workers On The Street" taken in 1904 featuring workers installing a new crossing at King & George Sts cnr.It is taken at night & the photographer must have used plenty of flash powder.
I will try & get the photo to this group.
Jeff

--- On Sat, 7/1/12, Noel Reed noelreed10@...> wrote:

From: Noel Reed noelreed10@...>
Subject: Re: FW: [TramsDownUnder] NSWGT Overhead Maintenance Vehicle
To:TramsDownUnder@...
Received: Saturday, 7 January, 2012, 7:42 PM

On Sat 7/01/2012 3:24 PM, Hunslet [[email protected]]  wrote --
 
I suggest that it would have been extremely rare for steam motors to be operating over an electrified line when overhead maintenance was being carried out.                                                                                                                     
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I would think that steam trams on similar routes to electric trams would have been quite common for a number of years as most Sydney tramway electrification was installed from the city outward to suburban areas. Overhead wire installation would be carried out in daylight hours as tramway power for lighting would not be available for night work on a tower wagon. 
 
During electrification work, a steam motor towing a 'SV' trailer wagon loaded with a large reel of trolley wire was possibly closely followed by the horse drawn tower wagon when wire was erected.
During this work, regular steam trams could be passing on the adjacent track.
 
Apart from steam motors terrifying horses, the gradual introduction of motor trucks and cars with noisy back-firing exhausts would not have been kind to equine nervous systems.
 
Maybe the tower wagon horses had previous 'calming time' by subjecting them to sudden noises near the Randwick Workshops foundry.  I don't think that sprags in the wheels of the tower wagon would have done much good. .
 
Noel Reed .  Still thinking of traction motors in  horse-power.