The Melbourne cable tramway system was a cable car public transportation system operated from 1885 to 1940 in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.
The system grew to about 75 kilometres (47 mi) of double track (103.2 route km or 64.12 route miles) and 1200 cars and trailers, on 17 radiating routes from the centre of Melbourne to neighbouring suburbs. It was one of the largest cable car systems in the world, comparable with the San Francisco and Chicago cable car networks. George Smith Duncan was appointed as consulting engineer (and subsequently engineer) for the development of the tramway network. The network in Melbourne was built by local Tramway trusts composed of local councils and municipalities, and was operated by the Melbourne Tramway and Omnibus Company from 1885 to 1916 (with the exception of the Northcote tramway, which was privately built and operated), after which the service was transferred to the Victorian Government, and passed to the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board on 1 November 1919 (the Northcote tramway was transferred to the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board on 20 February 1920).
Although the first electric tram was introduced in 1885 at Doncaster and ran for 11 years, the electric tram network did not seriously commence until 1906 when the Victorian Railways built an "Electric Street Railway" from St Kilda railway station to Brighton, and the North Melbourne Electric Tramway and Lighting Company (NMETL) built a feeder line from the terminus of the cable system out towards Essendon. From 1924 the cable tram lines were progressively converted to electric trams with the last Melbourne cable tram operating on 26 October 1940.
Famous quotes containing the words cable and/or system:
“To be where little cable cars climb halfway to the stars.”
—Douglass Cross (b. 1920)
“I candidly confess that I have ever looked on Cuba as the most interesting addition which could ever be made to our system of States. The control which, with Florida, this island would give us over the Gulf of Mexico, and the countries and isthmus bordering on it, as well as all those whose waters flow into it, would fill up the measure of our political well-being.”
—Thomas Jefferson (1743–1826)