Municipal Tramways Trust (GRG22)

The MTT was created to take over and electrify the horse-drawn tramways serving the city and surrounding suburbs. It gradually expanded to serve much of the metropolitan area (with a fleet of 311 trams at its peak). From 1928 it was also responsible for licensing private bus routes. Post-World War II financial difficulties led to the restructuring of the Trust in 1953 and the conversion from trams to buses, which was completed on November 22, 1958 (the Glenelg line and some 30 tramcars surviving). The Trust was dissolved on December 8, 1975, its operations becoming part of the State Transport Authority.

Geography gave Adelaide a unique advantage in the horse-drawn era. As the only capital city built on a plain it had "the first complete horse tramway system in Australia". (1) It was the first Australian City to adopt horse-trams and the last to discard them.

The Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Company Limited was empowered, by a Private Act of Parliament in 1876, to construct a line between the City and Kensington and Norwood, which opened on July 10, 1872. (2) (The First line in South Australia, between Goolwa and Port Elliot, had opened in January 1855. (3))

Between 1881 and 1884 fourteen Private Acts were passed enabling the construction or extension of tramways. As early as 1889 the Directors of the Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Company examined the "Julien" battery car as a cheap means of introducing electric trams (as no system of power distribution was necessary) but the "Julien" failed to live up to its promoters claims.

During 1900 several proposals for electrification of all or part of the tramway system were put forward by one J.H. Packard. A Mr Bingham had proposed to Adelaide City Council that the metropolitan councils obtain an Act of Parliament enabling them to take over the tramways. (4) On behalf of an English syndicate, Bingham would lease an exclusive right to operate tramways and electrify the lines. The City Council also toyed with the idea of a co-operative venture involving only the metropolitan councils. Although the suburban councils proved unenthusiastic, the city council pressed ahead with the lobbying of Government members and the collection of data. (5) Tram companies with termini in the city operated 162 cars pulled by 1062 horses over 74 miles of track, carrying approximately 11 million passengers per year.

In the midst of all this the State Government despatched Thomas Roberts, Chief Mechanical Engineer of the South Australian Railways, on a trip round the world to study tramway systems. His report to Parliament (6), in August 1901, recommended the adoption of electric trams using the overhead trolley-wire system of powder distribution. As this coincided with a private proposal already before it, the Government proceeded to legislate.

The Adelaide and Suburban Tramways Electric Traction Act, 1901 (a Private Act) empowered Francis Hugh Snow to purchase the Adelaide and Suburban; Adelaide, Unley and Mitcham; and Adelaide and Hindmarsh Tramway Companies. Snow, acting on behalf of British Westinghouse and Callenders Cable Construction Company (7), undertook to purchase the services, electrify them, and construct 70 miles of new track, in return for an exclusive right to operate trams in the specified area for 21 years. As a guarantee of performance, Snow deposited 8000 Pounds Sterling with the Treasury (which he apparently forfeited when the scheme did not go ahead).

Snows difficulties persuading the companies to sell led to the City Council to revive its plans for a co-operative venture. Eventually the State Government took the initiative, passing the Tramways Electric Traction Act, 1904 (8), which repealed the 1901 Act and provided for the Government to purchase all tramways with termini in the city. As had happened to Snow a price could not be agreed, but the new Act provided for a process of arbitration. (9) The arbitrators, representing the Government and the Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Company, were appointed in February 1905 and agreement was reached on June 22, 1906. (10)

For a total of 282,581/11/3 Pounds Sterling the Government purchased the tramways and undertaking of the following:

- Adelaide and Suburban Tramway Co. Ltd.
- Adelaide, Unley and Mitcham Tramway Co. Ltd
- Parkside Tramway Co. Ltd
- Adelaide and Hyde Park Tramway Co. Ltd.
- Hindmarsh and Henley Beach Tramway Co. Ltd.
- Charles Wilcox (proprietor of The Payneham and Paradise Tramway and the Goodwood Tramway).

The purchase having been duly ratified by Parliament, The Municipal Tramways Trust Act, 1906, was passed. (11)

The Trust was to consist of eight members: two appointed by the Government; two by Adelaide City Council; two by the suburban corporations served by the various tramways; and two by the District Councils within whose boundaries the outer lines terminated. (12) As the area served by the Trust grew, so did the list of Corporations and councils in the latter two electorates. The membership of the Trust remained at eight, however, until it was restructured in 1953.

The Trust came into being on February 1, 1907 and on the fifth it formally received the horse tramways from the Government. (13) Although plans for electrification were immediately put in hand, the Trust operated horse tram services for the next two years. In its first five months of operation the Trust was able to reduce fares, improve the trams, increase the wages and reduce the working hours of staff, and still pay more than 6000 Pounds Sterling to the Government. (14)

The Trust saddled with heavy debts, the Government having decided to treat the purchase price of the tramways as a loan to the Trust. Not only did interest have to be paid on this, but further monies were borrowed from Treasury to pay for electrification as the work progressed. By a complex arrangement, the councils whose areas were served by the Trust guaranteed par to fits liabilities, but all loans were raised through the Treasury and the guarantee arrangement was finally abandoned in 1953.

During 1907 the Trust, operating from temporary premises at number 8 King William Street, began planning the rationalisation of lines within the city and the rationalisation of the various termini into a succession of stops in King William Street. A lease was taken on the site of the old Lunatic Asylum on Hackney Road and a contract let for construction of offices, sheds and workshops.

At a ceremony in Hackney Road on May 17, 1908 the first sod was turned for the construction of the track. (During the process of electrification all existing permanent way, designed for horse-drawn vehicles, had to be replaced). The first trial run of an electric tram, on November 30, was followed by a services of training runs for the drivers. The electric service was formally inaugurated in March 9, 1909 when a group of decorated trams travelled the first route to be electrified. Fittingly, this was the three kilometres of the Adelaide - Kensington line, which had been the first horse-tram route. By the end of the year the inner lines were all electrified and work was commencing on the outer lines (including dupliation of sections of single track). During 1910 construction began, at Port Adelaide, on the Trusts own power station.

The MTT proved popular and over the years a succession of Acts were passed adding new councils and corporations to the two electorates, and granting the Trust exclusive rights to operate a new service, or empowering it to acquire an existing service.

Port Adelaide was added to the Trust area as a suburban corporation in 1913. The Port Adelaide, Queenstown, Albert Park and Portland Estate Tramway Co. Ltd., had built a 5-3" permanent way and opened its service with steam trams and 1879. The service was converted to horse-trams in 1882. The Trust purchased the company, converted the tracks to 4-8.5" (the standard tramway gauge) and electrified the lines. Although some of the routes were extended, they were never linked to the rest of the Trust routes.

Never economic, the Port Adelaide tramway system was progressively closed down between November 11, 1934 and July 27, 1935. Fuel buses were used initially, but some of the overhead wires were retained and after 1937 the Port Adelaide area was served by a mixture of trolley buses and fuel buses.

Henley and Grange was added in 1917. Legislation enabling Glenelg, Brighton and Marion to come within the Trust was passed in 1927, but was not put into effect until 1929 because of the complexity of the negotiations involved.

Most of the present Glenelg tramway had originally been built as a 5-3" gauge railway. The Adelaide, Glenelg and Suburban Railway Co. Ltd., obtained an Act of Parliament in 1871 and the line was opened in 1873. A second line to Glenelg was built by the Holdfast Bay Railway Co. Ltd. under an Act of 1878, as was a line to Grange built by the Grange and Military Road Railway Co. Ltd. By a Private Act of 1881 the two companies serving Glenelg and its environs were amalgamated to form the Glenelg Railway Co. Ltd., which was purchased by the Government (15) in 1899 for the sum of 120,000 Pounds Sterling. The Grange line had already been purchased pursuant to a resolution of Parliament on October 5, 1892.

All these lines were vested in the Commissioner of Railways, who had earlier constructed a line between Grange and Henley Beach. (16) The Commissioner and the Trust were authorised to negotiate the transfer of the first Glenelg line and parts of all the others mentioned above. The transfer was effected on April 3, 1929. The lines were converted to 4-8.5" gauge, electrified, and the Glenelg tramway opened for business on December 14. (17)

The tramway system continued to expand, enjoying something of a boom during the Second World War. The last new route, an extension of the Burnside line, opened in 1944. Further extensions were proposed, but the Trusts declining revenues in the post-war years precluded heavy capital expenditure. Henceforth the Trust was to rely more and more heavily on the other forms of transport it had developed in tandem with its tramways.

The Trust used buses of one type or another virtually from its inception. During the process of electrification buses, presumably horse-drawn, were used whenever it was necessary to interrupt a service in order to lay new track. Adelaides last horse-tram ran on the Goodwood route, between Millswood and Clarence Park, on June 25, 1914. Until March 2, 1915, when the electric service commenced, a motor omnibus was used on the route. In July 1914 a contract was used on the route. In July 1914 a contract was let for Daimler Motor Omnibuses, but this was cancelled due to the War.

In 1925 the Trust introduced a fleet of 40 Mack buses (which remained in service until 1950). They were used on feeder routes serving the main tramway routes for the first ten years. With the abolition of the Metropolitan Omnibus Board on November 8, 1928 (18), its powers were transferred to the MTT. Henceforth the trust had an exclusive right to operate, or licence others to operate, bus services within its prescribed area (ie.; the area of any local government body which was listed in the MTT Act). With the closure of the Port Adelaide tramway system in 1935 fuel buses began to be used on trunk routes, initially in conjunction with trolleybuses.

The Trust, as an experiment, ran what was probably the first trolleybus service in Australia. From April 18, 1932 until August 11, 1934 the "Green Goddess" ran a scheduled service on the Payneham - Paradise route. The experiment was considered a success, and with the closure of the Port Adelaide tramway system, a fleet of 20 trolleybuses came into service on September 5, 1937. By 1952 there were 61 trolleybuses, though this figure had fallen to 56 by 1962 when the decision to phase them out was taken. The last schedule service ran on Friday July 12, 1963. The following day three trolleybuses, with 120 passengers, undertook a farewell tour of the 23 miles of trolley-bus routes. (19)

The Trusts declining revenues after the War were reflected in an increase of road traffic which congested the streets of the city. In 1947 a Royal Commission was appointed to examine transport services throughout South Australia. Its third interim report, on traffic within the city of Adelaide (20), was published in 1950. It blamed trams, and the poles carrying their power lines, for much of the congestion in King William Street. The report suggested re-routing of trams rather than abolishing the service.

The Final Report (21) noted a decline in passenger numbers and criticised the Trust for failing to introduce modern, more efficient rolling stock. The Commission felt that less patronised routes should be converted to buses, though it left the decision to the Trust. Subsequently, the Trust requested that the Government appoint a Committee to examine its operations and finances.

The Committees reports (22) showed that the Trusts routes had not changed in 20 years. Heavy trams were the mainstay of its services and only limited use was made of trolleybuses and fuel buses. The Committee concluded that the post-war financial disaster was in some measure due to the earlier efficiency of the Trust. Its ability to cope with interest payments on massive borrowings had, over 40 years, led councils to demand over-extension of its services. The passenger downturn in the later 1940s caught the Trust with too many services, over too large area, at a time when its fleet of trams was largely overdue for replacement.

Although critical of the Trusts management, and of the debt burden with which it was saddled, the Committee felt that public street transport had to be maintained in some form. Whilst recognizing the efficiency of trams for the movement of large numbers of people, it felt that buses would be cheaper for the volume of traffic in Adelaide. It recommended that the Government take over the assets and appoint a new five-member Trust; the light traffic routes be converted to buses immediately; and that the new Trust gradually phase out trams altogether. The Government accepted the recommendations and legislation embodying the changes (23) came into effect on February 2, 1953.

Like 1907, when the MTT was established, 1953 proved a year of frenetic activity. The Trust developed a ten-year plan to convert all its tram routes to single-deck diesel buses (postponing a final decision on trolleybuses for two or three years). The plan envisaged one-man operation of all buses and a terminus in Victoria Square for all bus routes serving the city. The plan was reviewed by a firm of consultant engineers in October and their report was delivered to the Government in December (25). Meanwhile the Trust had designed what was to be its standard bus for the future, with seating for 140 passengers and room for 50 standing.

The Trust continued to licence private bus operators who did not compete directly with it and began investigating the co-ordination of its routes and timetables with those of the South Australian Railways.

The Trusts ten-year plan was effectively completed in five years. The last tram ran on the Cheltenham route on November 22, 1958. Although the Trust had considered converting the Glenelg route to some form of limited-access road, it was decided to retain it as a tramway. (Having been built as a railway, on its own right-of-way, it did not interfere with traffic). During the conversion some power poles had been sold, in situ, to the Electricity Trust. The remainder, like the tracks, had been removed, with the exception of those used on trolleybus routes in the Port Adelaide area. (The trolleybuses finally went out of service on July 13, 1963).

During the 1960s the change to one-man operated buses continued, as did the installation of radio-communication in buses. The Trust had begun an experiment with radio on March 8, 1954, with 8 radios installed in inspectors vehicles and a control room at Hackney depot. (26) Both processes were completed in 1973, a year that also saw the introduction of weekly tickets and the inauguration of the Bee-Line free bus linking Victoria Square with the Adelaide Railway Station.

Throughout this period the Trust had continued to expand its services. On October 1, 1965 its exclusive right to operate or licence bus services was extended to cover the Municipalities of Salisbury and Elizabeth and part of the District Council of Munno Para. On November 1 it was again extended to take in the District Council of Tea Tree Gully.

The next major change to the Trust came in 1974. During the 1973 the Bus Proprietors Association had applied for Government subsidies on behalf of its members. Whilst rejecting the subsidy idea, the Minister of Transport had lengthy discussions with the Association. The outcome was an agreement whereby the Government would provide the money for the Trust to buy out those private operators who wished to sell, at the agreed value of their assets and liabilities. Twelve private operators accepted the offer, transferring their services to the Trust on February 24, 1974. The Trust, from serving 279km of routes, now had 730km. Its fleet of 26 tramcars (which it was in the process of refurbishing) and 415 buses was augmented by 230 buses and 39 coaches.

During the changeover period the new routes were served by their original staff, from their existing depots, with their former owners acting as depot managers. In 1975 (on March 31 and June 1) two more private operators transferred their services to the Trust. All these services were gradually integrated and the number of depots reduced.

The State Transport Authority had been established in 1974 to co-ordinate the activities of the South Australian Railways, the MTT and the Transport Control Board. (Bus fares were brought into line with rail fares on February 1). Amendments to the STA Act, and to the Acts controlling each of the Public transport bodies were passed by State Parliament in 1975. As a result the MTT was dissolved on December 8, becoming the Bus and Tram Division of the STA. (The control of licensed bus services passed to the Registration Division, which had previously been the TCB). Henceforth all public transport (with the exception of taxis) would come under central control.

Same agency as GA120 - different archival control system.

References

1) Brimson, Samuel, The Tramways of Australia, Sydney, Dreamweaver Books, 1983, p16. [the dates cited in this work are not always accurate.]
2) ibid
3) Municipal Tramways Trust, The Tramways of Adelaide: Past, Present and Future, Adelaide, The Critic, 1909, p.4.
4) MTT, op. Cit., p.26.
5) ibid., p.12.
6) Parliamentary Paper 71 of 1901.
7) MTT, op. cit., p.11.
8) Act No. 865 of 1904.
9) See GA 84.
10) PP 27 of 1906 (18th Parliament) contains the text of the agreement.
11) Act No. 913 of 1906.
12) MTT, op. cit., P.13, lists the corporations and councils which participated in the Trust from the outset.
13) PP 92 of 1907.
14) ibid.
15) Act No. 726 of 1899 contains the agreement.
16) This was latter retrospectively authorised by Act No. 698 of 1898.
17) See 45th and 46th half-yearly statements of accounts (GRS 325).
18) SAGG of that date, p.1013.
19) P.R.O. Newspaper cuttings, V.3, p.100.
20) PP. 15 of 1950.
21) PP. 17 of 1951.
22) PP. 22 and 22a of 1952.
23) Act. No. 16 of 1952.
24) SAGG 29 Jan. 1953, p.107.
25) Published as PP 92 of 1955.
26) PP 65 of 1954.