Hawthorn - answers and questions
Donald Galt
Monday, November 25, 2002 9:28 PM
Notes on the education of DG with respect to Horse Trams, Hawthorn &al:
Jeff Bounds points out that the Hawthorn horse tram ran to a terminus in
Riversdale Road at Auburn Road, with a depot at the terminus. Had I previously
looked a little further I'd have noticed the caption on the attached picture.
The scan is from "100 Years of Melbourne's Trams" published by the MTT. The
historical pictures in this booklet are printed in mock sepia and are
unfortunately dark and high in contrast. I'd almost be willing to bet that
somebody around here has a better version of this shot.
With contributions from Peter Bruce, Graeme Cleak, Paul Nicholson and Mal Rowe
one gets some picture of the former Hawthorn services and depot.
And yes, Mal, that is indeed a handsome building.
But, does anybody have a track map of the depot and surrounding streets before
1974? I've attached a snip of the 1945 aerial map from Melbourne Uni (patched
together from adjoining streets) which is too small to make out details of
trackwork but which seems to confirm a couple of surprising conclusions:
1. That the depot was accessible only from the west end, so that cars running
in from the east would have need to reverse.
2. That there was no curve from Power Street to Wallen Road, so that #27 cars
could only reach the depot by reversing twice. Not only that, from Paul's
remark I gather they had to go to Glenferrie Road to do so. This seems not so
much surprising as astounding.
When the HTT built its depot right at a principal node, one would have expected
it them to make the facility easily accessible to all parts of the new network.
Even granted that the line from Hawthorn Bridge, which as a horsecar had
extended 2/3 of the distance to Camberwell Junction, was now reduced to a
shuttle service until electrification of the Richmond cable line in 1927.
Note to the Demon Driver: the Time Lines book is on my "to buy" list. Needed a
breather, though - my Melbourne library is in the past couple of months
enriched by two Keenan Books (1974 and 1985), the abovementioned "100 Years"
and the 2001 printing (1993 edition, I take it) of "Destination City." And my
older Brimson, if a bit general, is full of information.
(I'll probably hear from the ogres about including two JPEGs in one message.
But it is less confusing this way and the two together amount to less than
90KB.)
Don
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
Jeff Bounds points out that the Hawthorn horse tram ran to a terminus in
Riversdale Road at Auburn Road, with a depot at the terminus. Had I previously
looked a little further I'd have noticed the caption on the attached picture.
The scan is from "100 Years of Melbourne's Trams" published by the MTT. The
historical pictures in this booklet are printed in mock sepia and are
unfortunately dark and high in contrast. I'd almost be willing to bet that
somebody around here has a better version of this shot.
With contributions from Peter Bruce, Graeme Cleak, Paul Nicholson and Mal Rowe
one gets some picture of the former Hawthorn services and depot.
And yes, Mal, that is indeed a handsome building.
But, does anybody have a track map of the depot and surrounding streets before
1974? I've attached a snip of the 1945 aerial map from Melbourne Uni (patched
together from adjoining streets) which is too small to make out details of
trackwork but which seems to confirm a couple of surprising conclusions:
1. That the depot was accessible only from the west end, so that cars running
in from the east would have need to reverse.
2. That there was no curve from Power Street to Wallen Road, so that #27 cars
could only reach the depot by reversing twice. Not only that, from Paul's
remark I gather they had to go to Glenferrie Road to do so. This seems not so
much surprising as astounding.
When the HTT built its depot right at a principal node, one would have expected
it them to make the facility easily accessible to all parts of the new network.
Even granted that the line from Hawthorn Bridge, which as a horsecar had
extended 2/3 of the distance to Camberwell Junction, was now reduced to a
shuttle service until electrification of the Richmond cable line in 1927.
Note to the Demon Driver: the Time Lines book is on my "to buy" list. Needed a
breather, though - my Melbourne library is in the past couple of months
enriched by two Keenan Books (1974 and 1985), the abovementioned "100 Years"
and the 2001 printing (1993 edition, I take it) of "Destination City." And my
older Brimson, if a bit general, is full of information.
(I'll probably hear from the ogres about including two JPEGs in one message.
But it is less confusing this way and the two together amount to less than
90KB.)
Don
Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
