The MTT's 100
inaugural trams were of two North American designs, manufactured by the
J.G. Brill Company of
Philadelphia and shipped for final assembly by Adelaide coachbuilders
Duncan & Fraser, who subsequently built 20
more cars. In 1929, twenty years after a false start, the Glenelg railway line was converted to electric operation. Since most of the line was in a
private reservation, the MTT designed an
interurban-style high-speed (for the time)
end-loading saloon tram with power-operated doors and folding steps. Thirty of them, capable of running coupled together, were built hurriedly for the line's opening. Popularly known as "Glenelg" or "Bay" trams, they were to operate in revenue service for 77 years. An
updated version of the Glenelg trams was designed in 1939, but post-war material shortages delayed the introduction of the first – and ultimately the only – car until 1953. The South Australian government then replaced the local government councillors comprising most of the MTT board with its government officials and announced its intention to close all of Adelaide's tram services, to be replaced by buses. The last street tram operated on 22 November 1958, leaving only the Glenelg line and its unique trams to survive, on a route from
Victoria Square, the geographic centre of
Adelaide, to
Moseley Square, Glenelg. By 2006 the Glenelg trams had been in full-time operation for 77 years. In January a
new generation of tram was introduced to run not only on a newly upgraded Glenelg line but also on of new street lines that were to be extended north of Victoria Square through busy central Adelaide thoroughfares. These new trams were designated the
100 Series. By year's end the 1929-vintage trams had been largely phased out of normal revenue service (the last being in 2008), only running occasionally on special occasions. In 2009 the
second series of new trams went into service as the
200 Series; more arrived in 2017, bringing the total number of trams on the system to 24.
Type A ,
South Australia On 9 March 1909, a balmy South Australian autumn day, many thousands turned out to see a procession of 14 trams going slowly along the thoroughfares of Adelaide and nearby eastern suburbs for the official opening of the city's electric tramway system. The leading cars had a central saloon compartment somewhat similar to that of a horse tram and a compartment with cross-bench seating at each end, open to the weather. The design was popular in southern California, where the climate is similar to Adelaide's for much of the year. Thus they were officially described as "four-wheeled, drop-ended 'California combination' cars" – the "combination" referring to the two types of accommodation. All 70 were built in 1908 and 1909 by Adelaide coachbuilders
Duncan & Fraser, incorporating running gear and electrical equipment sourced from the UK and the US. Duncan & Fraser had an established record building horse tram cars for the
Adelaide & Suburban Tramway Company and both horse and electric trams for several operators in
Melbourne,
Ballarat,
Bendigo, and
Geelong. The company initially constructed the cars, and Type B cars, in the machinery building of the
Jubilee Exhibition grounds. However, when the building was required by the
Royal Agricultural and Horticultural Society of South Australia the work was moved to
Hackney Depot, delaying construction of cars and preventing electric services from beginning on the planned date of 23 December 1908. Although at the time the MTT was established air brakes were being installed on streetcars in the US since they are much faster in application and release and therefore safer than mechanical brakes, Type A trams were never fitted with them; neither were any trams built before 1920. For normal stopping the Adelaide trams had a handbrake, operated by the motorman manually winding a wheel in the cab, and
electromagnetic track brakes, energised by power generated by the motors as the cars slowed down, for emergencies. Three Type A cars were sold in 1936 to the
State Electricity Commission of Victoria. The remainder were withdrawn from service by May 1952; many were sold for use as shacks.
For Types A1 and A2 trams, see the sections headed "Type B conversion to Type A1" and "Type B conversion to Type A2". Type B For the MTT's inaugural order in 1909, Duncan & Fraser built another 30 trams, of a US design different from that of the Type A. They too were four-wheeled cars but they lacked the closed saloon compartment of the Type A. All passengers were accommodated on cross-bench seats in one completely open compartment, which soon gave rise to the nickname, "
toast racks". The trams carried 50 passengers seated and 50 standing for a crush load of 100, the same total as the Type A trams. into "California combination" trams, halving the number of exposed seats in the process. This work was done after the
Type B conversions to Type A2 had taken place. Under the alphabetical classification system of 1923 they were designated as Type A1. After conversion the trams were similar to the existing
Type A – a design also continued in the subsequent
Type C cars. Seven were converted for the isolated Port Adelaide tram system operated by the MTT between 1917 and 1935. Type A1 cars were rated with the same passenger capacity (seated and crush load) as the Type A. Four Type A1 trams were converted into permanently coupled "Bib and Bub" pairs, a wartime labour-saving configuration applied to most Type A cars. These four were the last of the Type A1 cars to be withdrawn from service in 1950, together with the sets of Type A trams not converted back into single car operation. As with previous trams, running gear and electrical equipment were necessarily sourced from the UK and US. The 70 trams, built between 1910 and 1912, could carry 154 passengers in total (54 seated and 100 standing). When 20 had been completed, a change was made to the design of the remaining 30 (subsequently increased to 50): sliding doors were fitted to enclose each row of bench seats to give for protection from inclement weather. These trams came to be designated as Type D ("closed combination metropolitan bogie cars"); the first 20 became Type E. The design of these larger cars featured
maximum traction trucks, recognisable by one pair of wheels being much smaller in diameter (508 mm or 20 inches) than the other (838 mm or 33 inches, the same diameter as on the earlier types). The driving axle, with large wheels, was driven; the other was not. By locating the truck pivot off-centre, more weight rested on the driving axle, providing greater traction. The smaller wheels guided the truck on the rails, bearing a relatively small portion of the weight. The Type D trams operated in regular service until the street network was closed in 1958. carrying only 50 passengers. They incorporated folding doors and steps and several safety features, and used little power, but due to their small wheelbase tended to "ride like a rowboat out to sea". It was to be electrified with
overhead catenary at 600 volts
direct current. Track was re-laid to in)
standard gauge, the same as other Adelaide tram lines. By December of that year the track had been refurbished and gauge-converted, a flyover bridge built over the railway to Melbourne at Goodwood, and electrification
infrastructure installed. In terms of rolling stock design it was evident not only in the Type H cars but also in the stock US
streetcar designs, both in layout and detail, that he favoured in 1908–1912 for the inaugural Adelaide street tram system and in his 1918 design (not built) for fast-loading street trams. Goodman had proposed a similar design for electrification of the line twenty years earlier, but the electrification bill introduced into the South Australian Parliament was defeated, as was a similar bill two years later. ;A memorable experience To the travelling public the trams became known by their destination as "Glenelg" and "Bay" trams (after
Holdfast Bay, on which Glenelg is located). They were very popular from the beginning; a journey on a "Bay" tram gave the traveller a comfortable experience of 1920s technology that with the passing of the years became more memorable. Brian Andrews recalled his childhood journeys in
City and Glenelg: Steel undergear components and electrical equipment were sourced separately from the UK and US; the compensating-beam truck frames were supplied by the Australian agents of the
Commonwealth Steel Company of
Illinois and the rest of the truck was built by the MTT's Hackney workshops. to the new Glengowrie depot on the Glenelg line and the overhead wiring was re-engineered (including rigging the wire to "zig-zag"), 11 out of the 21 surviving cars were fitted with pantographs and all 21 had roller bearings fitted to their
trucks. Ten of the cars underwent their first-ever major refurbishment at the
State Transport Authority's workshops, based at the time in
Regency Park. In 2001 and 2002, some Type H cars were modernised, asbestos was removed and electronic inverter controls replaced the original control gear. Five cars were given a complete rebuild. In 2005 all remaining cars were modified so they could operate past the upgraded passenger platforms built in readiness for new
100 Series Flexity Classic trams, which would be narrower. ;Liveries When introduced in 1929, the cars received a varnished
tuscan-red and deep cream livery, with varnished wood interiors and black undergear, as for other Adelaide trams. All silver trams were returned to their original external and internal livery starting in 1971, when 18 cars were extensively refurbished. restaurant car 378; and five non-operational. Organisations such as museums with heritage experience could seek a tram as a gift or at minimum value. Their subsequent uses were as varied as a restaurant, an attraction at a
bed-and-breakfast venue, a tourism display at Glenelg, and a
media studies classroom in a
Riverland high school. In 2006, a transitional period started in which the cars were progressively withdrawn as new Flexity Classic trams arrived. Most were withdrawn by 2007; the final revenue service on the Glenelg Line was in 2008, by which time the cars were 79 years old. Five of them were retained at Glengowrie depot to operate a weekend "heritage tram" service and charter trips, the last of which occurred in 2015. They were acquired by
tramways museums, where most were operable.
Type H1 When Adelaide's street tramways were closed in 1958, Type H1 car 381 was the most modern of the MTT fleet. It was the first of a projected order of 40 cars originally planned in 1939. However, the Second World War intervened, and post-war material shortages delayed construction until the 1950s. Built by Adelaide bus manufacturer J.A. Lawton & Sons as one of two
prototypes, no. 381 was essentially a streamlined, all-steel version of the Type H with many constructional features of buses and one pair of doors in the middle of the tram instead of at the end. Although it captured the public's imagination, commonly being known as "the streamliner", it incorporated only marginal improvements over the Type H. It was introduced in January 1953 and for most of its short operational life it ran on the through-routed Kensington and Henley North lines. In 1953, however, time was running out for Adelaide's trams. By February 1950 petrol rationing had ended and families aspired to buy motor cars; patronage on public transport had dropped from 95 million in 1946 to 78 million in 1951. In 1951 the lower house of the parliament of South Australia appointed a select committee to investigate the MTT following a forecast that in June 1952, for the first time since its inception, the trust would be unable to meet its financial obligations without assistance. in February 1952 the committee issued its interim findings criticising many of the operations of the trust, including a failure to plan for the future. Eleven months later, in the same month that the H1 car was introduced, the MTT board, which since 1907 had comprised mainly municipal council appointees, was reconstituted with a new board of state government appointees. The board initiated a complete re-examination of the transport system, and plans were made to replace all the existing tramways, including the
Glenelg line, with bus operation. Thus tram 381 became one of a kind; a partly constructed 382 was scrapped. It was withdrawn from revenue service in December 1957 and donated to the Tramway Museum, St Kilda in 1965, where it is operational. It spent only five years in revenue service but has spent years in preservation. ==Trams of the 21st century==