Re: Brisbane question

Hi Bob,

You are partly right, in fact the M&MTB were offered the Sydney R/R1 class
cars and some of them were only 8 years old and would have been much closer
to Melbournes needs than the Brisbane cars and were indeed looked at (as
were the Brisbane cars) as the W2's were well beyond their "use by" date
even if they were good cars and still had many years of life left in them,
they were none the less, obsolete even in 1961 when the Sydney cars were
available.

The door arrangement was one problem with the Sydney cars but could have
been overcome, same with Brisbane, the Brisbane cars were rejected quickly
as they were to narrow and lacked the capacity of the Melbourne (and Sydney)
cars but the real reason was more sinister, The then Bolte government was
very anti-tram but, because of the structure of the M&MTB, could'nt force
his will on them but could and did, refuse funding for such frivolous things
as new cars! Add to that, that the Chairman, Sir RJ Risson was extremely
fare sighted (irrespective of his atitude to staff) and was detirmined to
get the latest type of car available, it was with some irony that, just
after he retired, so did Bolte who was replaced by a much more forward
thinking (for a conservative anyway) Sir Rupert Hamer.

One last point to add, as I said, Risson was very fare sighted and very
atuned to public thinking he (quite rightly) figured that, the press of the
day in their reporting of Sydney then Brisbane, getting rid of their
rattling, grinding old Juggernauts and replace them with quiet gliding
streamlined buses (oh I feel sick), would have had a field day if we had
bought any of Sydney or Brisbane's "cast off's". As much as I personally
would have loved to have operated Brisbane and Sydney cars in Melbourne, I
believe, at the time, it was the right thing to do otherwise, we may not
have any trams today, the pressure would have been overwhelming to get rid
of them. And THAT above all was the main reason.

Lastly, Melbourne did get some things from Brisbane the aforementioned
unused points (which I discovered a pile of them, single blade tight radius,
never used out the back of the old South Melb per way yard, I got them saved
via the ill fated Maitland group and I believe they are now in the care of
SPER. They also got some switch gear, line breakers and such, may have got a
few motors too but I'm unsure of that.

Greg

I wonder if there would have been any reason to bother.

The M&MTB was, as far as I know, in good shape with a large fleet of
reasonable cars which had a standardised layout with which passengers were
very familiar.

There were no major route extensions or new routes being seriously
contemplated so their fleet at the time was quite adequate size.

Sounds like those Brisbane cars were on the ball but the M&MTB wasn't
committed to many of the improvements the Brisbane cars had such as
resilient wheels which some cars had but which were later taken off the
road, presumably because the M&MTB could not see benefit (to them) for the
cost.

I think those Brisbane cars would have looked very ugly to Melburnians.
Unacceptably ugly. I've been living in Melbourne for 25 years and if you

put

a Melbourne car next to one of those wedge splitter front end Brisbane

cars

with the tiny windows...

And I'm sure that by 1970 the M&MTB would have been looking for and hoping
to get modern trams to upgrade the whole system in the eyes of the
travelling public.

Bob Murphy

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