Sydney Tramway Museum facts for kids
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| Established | 1965 |
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| Location | Pitt Street, Loftus, New South Wales, Australia |
| Type | Tramway museum |
| Nearest car park | On site |
The Sydney Tramway Museum is a special place where old trams are kept and shown. It is also known as the South Pacific Electric Railway. This museum is the oldest tram museum in Australia. It is also the biggest one in the southern half of the world! You can find it in Loftus, a suburb in southern Sydney.
Contents
The Museum's Story
Building the museum started in August 1956. Its first location was next to the Royal National Park. The museum officially opened in March 1965. A government leader named Pat Hills helped open it.
At first, the museum was quite simple. It had a shed with four tracks and about 800 meters of tram line. The shed was even built using recycled materials!
In 1975, the Government of New South Wales said the museum could move. The new spot was across the main road, near Loftus train station. Work on the new site began in April 1980. The first trams moved there in November 1982.
The new museum officially opened on March 19, 1988. An old tram shelter from Railway Square was also moved and put back together there. The very last tram left the old Royal National Park site in May 1989.
In 1989, the museum bought a special machine called a traverser. This machine helps move trams from one track to another. In 1991, the two-kilometer train line to the Royal National Park railway station closed. The museum was then able to start running trams on this line from May 1, 1993.
In 2001, the museum received a large stone front from an old YMCA building. This impressive structure from the 1880s was moved by a company called Meriton. It now makes a grand entrance to the museum. Work is still being done on this building as money becomes available. In 2010, the old gates from the original Gladesville Bridge were put in place as the museum's depot gates.
Sadly, on October 23, 2015, a storage shed at the museum's old site caught fire. This shed was off the main museum grounds. It held six trams, four buses, and a very old double-decker bus frame. All of these items were destroyed in the fire.
The movie Ladies in Black (2018) filmed some scenes at the museum. They used the old Railway Square Waiting Shed for parts of the movie.
How the Museum Works
The museum has a huge collection of trams. These trams come from Sydney, other Australian cities, and even from around the world! The museum has about 4 kilometers (2.5 miles) of track.
One tram line goes north for about 1.5 kilometers (0.9 miles). It runs next to Rawson Avenue, just like some old Sydney tram lines used to. The second line goes south for about 2.5 kilometers (1.6 miles). This line uses the old Royal National Park train track. This track was built in 1886 and closed in 1991.
In 1993, the museum changed this old train line to work with trams. They connected it to the Sutherland line. Now, this is a popular way to visit the world's second oldest national park. The line ends at the Royal National Park railway station.
You can visit the museum and ride the trams on Wednesdays, Sundays, and public holidays. It is closed on Christmas Day. They also open on some weekdays during school holidays.
The Sydney Tramway Museum is run entirely by people who volunteer their time. They don't get paid! The museum uses money from ticket sales and donations to pay for everything. This includes daily activities, fixing up old trams, and building new things.
Amazing Trams and Vehicles
The museum is home to many different types of trams and other vehicles. Here are some examples of the cool things you can see:
- Sydney Trams: The museum has many trams that used to run in Sydney. These include C-Class, D-Class, E-Class, F-Class, J-Class, K-Class, L/P-Class, N-Class, O-Class, P-Class, R-Class, and R1-Class trams. Some are still running, some are being fixed, and some are on display.
- Special Work Trams: There are also trams that were used for special jobs. These include freight cars, overhead line cars (for fixing power lines), scrubber trams (for cleaning tracks), and weed burners.
- Other Australian Trams: You can see trams from other Australian cities too! These include trams from Melbourne (like the Z2-Class and W2-Class) and Brisbane (like the Dreadnought and Dropcentre trams).
- International Trams: The museum even has trams from other countries! There's a tram from Milan, Italy, and a PCC tram from San Francisco, USA. There's also a tram from Nagasaki, Japan, which was a special gift.
Many of these trams have interesting stories. Some were changed over the years for different uses. For example, some passenger trams were turned into breakdown cars. The museum works hard to restore these old vehicles. They want to bring them back to their original look and even make them run again!
Engineering Award
The museum has received a special award called a Historic Engineering Marker. This award is from a group called Engineers Australia. It recognizes the museum's important work in preserving engineering history.
See Also
- List of rail transport–related periodicals
