On 12/04/2013 10:23 PM, grahamj661 wrote:
>

> There is a photo by Jeremy Wainwright in Dale Budds book - "Melbourne's Marvelous Trams" which shows a tram (W5 827) on the "up" or Moonee Ponds end of the bridge, re-entering the double track. To the left of the tram are signal lights in the form of standard 3 position traffic lights.

>

Thanks for pointing that out Graham - it took me quite a while to find the lights you refer to, but I finally saw them.
Here's my pic showing the lights - from the week before the new tracks were cut in.
http://tdu.to/830_MaribyrnongRiver_27May1967.jpg

I'm not sure those lights were for tramway safe-working - they face the wrong way (not towards the double line section) in both Jeremy's picture and mine.

I think it's likely that the single line working was simply based on line-of-sight witha protocol on which direction had priority ... but I have no evidence and the line of sight may have been affected by the hump of the bridge itself.

Could it be that they were used to control road traffic when needed??

Mal Rowe - a bit puzzled