Trams in Sydney - North Shore Lines

North Shore Lines

A feature of these lines was the underground tram terminus at Wynyard railway station (the only one in Australia), and the tracks over the Sydney Harbour Bridge. Trams ran from Blue Street, North Sydney over a now-demolished steel arch bridge over the Harbour Bridge Roadway, then over the eastern side of the harbour bridge (now road lanes), through a tram platform at Milsons Point similar to the existing railway station, and dived underground into platforms 1 and 2 of Wynyard station. These platforms were converted into a car park after the tramway's closure in 1958. Wynyard station's railway platforms are thus numbered 3-6.

The line along Military Road, opened in September, 1893, was the first permanent electric tramway in Sydney and New South Wales.

The first part of the North Sydney tramway system was a double-track cable tramway which started at the original Milsons Point Ferry wharf, located where the north pylon of the Harbour Bridge is now. The line originally extended via Alfred Street (now Alfred Street South), Junction Street (now Pacific Highway), Blue Street and Miller Streets to the engine house and depot at Ridge Street. It used cable grip cars called "dummies" and unpowered trailer cars, similar to the large Melbourne cable tramway system but quite different to the surviving lines in San Francisco, where everything is combined in a single vehicle.

The original cable line was extended via Miller and Falcon Streets to Crows Nest, and later the whole line was electrified and extensions were built to various termini around the Lower North Shore.

The history of the North Sydney tramway system can be divided into three periods - the first from the original opening in 1886 to 1909, when the McMahons Point line opened. The second period covers the time until the Wynyard line was opened across the Sydney Harbour Bridge in 1932, and the third from then until the general closure of the system in 1958.