Geoffrey,
You have asked a very good question. I have always considered the name South Pacific Electric Railway to be totally inappropriate. It does not pass the "pub test" in that it does not illustrate what the organisation is about and it confuses the public. I was on the Board of the museum in the early 70's and I did my best to have the name changed. The decision was that a change of the legal name would have been costly and may have confused the multitude of government agencies that we were dealing with at the time in our efforts to secure a new site. The compromise was that a business name would be registered and used as the museum's trading name but the corporate name would remain unchanged. I was adamant that the new name include the words 'tramway museum'. There was argument as to whether it should be NSW, Sydney or Loftus Tramway Museum. Some wanted the word 'electric' included. I opposed "electric" as the NSW Govt. Tramways used stream, cable and horse traction at various times and there were considerable times when different forms of traction co-existed on the system. I preferred NSW as it better reflected the state wide nature of the NSWGT. It ran tramways at Broken Hill, Maitland and Newcastle as well as Sydney. The final agreement was Sydney Tramway Museum ( STM).
How did we get the ridiculous name South Pacific Electric Railway? The four founding members were only in their late teens when they started the museum movement. They did not feel confident at that time to start a completely new organisation so they first approached the Aust. Railway Historical Society. No luck there. The Australian Electric Traction Association agreed to support a museum by a narrow margin. The modernists were not happy. To appease the membership the stated aims of the museum were to preserve electric trams, electric trains and (electric) trolleybuses. This was a very strange concept and it was if they were denying that other forms of traction had been used on the NSWGT systems. Such a collection would only tell part of the real history of the systems. The first priority should have been to obtain the few remaining examples of steam, cable and horse trams that were still in existence. The original agreement with the NSW Dept. of Govt. Transport was that the donated heritage trams be stored at Newtown Depot where the volunteers would have access to clean and paint the trams. This changed in 1952 when the NSW Labor Govt. announced that new tram construction would cease immediately and that the system would be scrapped over a 7 year period. The AETA was told to look for off site storage as space would be at a premium as the system contracted. About the same time member Norm Boxall spat the dummy when the AETA refused to add his favorite tram, 888, to the preservation list. Being an early example of a dole bludger he had plenty of time to organise tram tours some of which were unique and legendry events. He formed the NSW Tramway Historical Society and people flocked to join for booking priority. Most were also AETA members. He became a nuisance when he began presenting his organisation as a rival to the AETA and equally deserving of the donation of trams and equipment. The people in the Department often did not know which group was which. By this time the AETA was actively opposing the government's closure policies and realised that they had a conflict of interest. Accordingly the AETA calved off the museum group as the Australian Electric Transport Museum (AETM). The AETA had been allocated trams in Adelaide, Melbourne and Brisbane as well as Sydney. The cost of interstate transport was prohibitive and the Adelaide members incorporated under S.A. legislation and started developing their site at St.Kilda. By this time the Sydney AETM had grown to the point where local incorporation was necessary and various people wanted a name change. They wanted one completely different from that of Boxall's group and like the present day Transport for NSW considered the words "tram" and "tramway" to be on the nose. The Late Ron Murray had lived in the USA for an extended period and I'm sure he influenced the choice of South Pacific Electric Railway. (SPER). I'm sure he had the Los Angeles Pacific Electric in mind. They may as well have added the word "Museum" (SPERM) and made a complete farce of it. I recall the Late Chairman Ken McCarthy laughing his head off when the Tramway Museum Society of Victoria chose their name. I told him that the Victorians had got it right and that we were the one with the bizarre name. He didn't like that at all. At the present time the museum has more urgent uses for available funds than to change the name but I encourage people to use the name STM and only reserve the BS corporate name for the Annual report etc. Hopefully one day it will be changed.
Mike Giddey.
Sent from Outlookhttp://aka.ms/weboutlook
________________________________
From:tramsdownunder@... tramsdownunder@...> on behalf of Geoffrey Hansen gnhansen29@...>
Sent: Tuesday, 11 September 2018 11:26 PM
To:tramsdownunder@...
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] Origin of South Pacific Electric Railway name?
Just out of interest why is the Sydney Tramway Museum called the South Pacific Electric Railway? What is the name's origin? Is the name somehow influenced by the Pacific Electric Railway in the United States?
Regards
Geoffrey
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TramsDownUnder" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email totramsdownunder+unsubscribe@...mailto:tramsdownunder+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com.
To post to this group, send email totramsdownunder@...mailto:tramsdownunder@googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.