Melbourne Cable Tramways – Macmeikan & Pollock Reports

Car Depots

The general practice of MTOC was to establish the Car Depots at the termini of various lines. The only exception to this procedure was the Toorak Depot, which was situated at the corner of Toorak Road and Chapel Street at the rear of the Toorak engine house, and at a distance of approximately 1¼ to 1½ miles from the Toorak terminus [4].

From a traffic viewpoint, the depot at the terminus gave the Line Manager, who had complete control of the service running from his depot, the opportunity to readily reorganise the service in case of delays or accidents, by running in or out cars to make adjustments to the timetables. A disorganised service was quickly re-established by the Line Manager who was a thoroughly competent traffic officer with authority to act in this capacity.

Gripmen and conductors in front of Richmond Car Depot at the eastern end of Bridge Road, circa 1885. The facade of this building still exists as the street frontage for a hotel. Note the conductor standing in front of the first window pillar of the trailer car – the two strips of cardboard used in conjunction with the bell-punch to tally fares are visible pinned to the lapels of his uniform coat.: Photograph courtesy Royal Historical Society of Victoria.

The Car Depots had frontages to the roads on which the tramway service operated at fourteen of the sixteen depots. The fourteen depots referred to had run-outs and run-ins provided which were of minimum length. This was advantageous because cars and dummies were manhandled in and out of depots in most cases. Horses were used at four depots for this purpose, two of which had run-outs to very wide roads, the other two were in one case a heavy car (bogie) and in the other a comparatively long run-out on a gradient.

The majority of Depots had a run-out track to the up line [5] and run-in from the down. This was particularly advantageous for the man handling of rolling stock, when the run out or up track was on a downgrade and consequently the running from the other track was also on a downgrade.

Other layouts were level which were reasonably convenient for the man-handling of trams at these depots. In a very small minority of cases a single run-in and out track was provided. The following table sets out the sixteen depots, where situated, their capacity, and rolling stock housed at each in 1923, at which time the whole cable system was operating at its maximum capacity [6].

Depot	Location	Maximum Capacity (dummies)	Maximum Capacity (trailers)	Operating Capacity (dummies)	Operating Capacity (trailers)	Comments
Brunswick	Sydney Rd & Cozens St	70	70	64	66	Bogie trailer cars – 24' saloons
North Carlton	Rathdowne & Park Sts	34	34	33	35
Nicholson St	East side of Nicholson St, near Liverpool St	38	38	25	25
Fitzroy	St Georges Rd & Holden St	44	44	33	33
Clifton Hill	West side of Queens Pde, near Brennan St	51	51	45	43
Carlton	Johnston St & Trennery Crescent	34	34	31	31
Victoria St	South side of Victoria St, near Victoria Bridge	50	50	47	46
Richmond	Bridge Rd & River St	52	52	38	33
Toorak	Toorak Rd & Chapel St	21	21	22	21	1 dummy standing on traverser
Prahran	Chapel & Carlisle Sts	43	43	31	31
Brighton Rd	Brighton Rd & Brunning St	42	42	42	42
St Kilda Esplanade	West side Acland St, near Barkly St	50	50	47	50
South Melbourne	Victoria Ave & Beaconsfield Pde	41	41	36	37
Port Melbourne	Beach & Donaldson Sts	21	21	17	17
North Melbourne	South side of Flemington Rd, near Flemington Bridge	43	43	34	33
Northcote	High & Martin Sts	15	15	15	15
		Total		560	558
		Spare Cars		25	20
		Cars at workshops		12	23
		Total rolling stock		597	601

Car Depots – Construction

All car depots were built to the same basic design. A brick dwarf wall on concrete foundations carried a timber bottom wall plate, on which wooden pillars were mounted supporting the timber top wall plate and roof principals. Intermediate studs and lateral timbers were positioned where required for windows and other openings. The walls were braced with the customary diagonal bracings, and further timber pillars were erected on concrete foundations throughout the depot, in the position required to carry the timber roof principles with purlins lines, skylight frames etc.

The walls and roof coverings were of 16 gauge corrugated galvanized iron, and the timber used in the building construction was oregon. Heavy timber sliding doors were installed to close the main entrance where tracks were laid for the running in and out of trams. Small doors in the large sliding doors were used for access outside normal operating hours. Natural lighting was provided by skylights and windows.

With the addition of gas lighting, roof guttering, down pipes, drainage and water supply, the depot was ready for the installation of tracks, traverses, pits, turntable, and other facilities necessary for operation.

The layout of the typical car depot is shown at Figure 1.

Figure 1. Typical layout of car depot.: From the Macmeikan report.

Car Depots – Operation

Each depot was supervised by a Line Manager with responsibility for operating the depot and associated routes. Traffic clerks, gripmen and conductors were under his control, but the shed leading hand and mechanics (known collectively as the shed staff) were accountable to the Workshops Superintendent for the maintenance of all the rolling stock and car depot equipment & plant.

The leading hand was issued with a copy of the timetable so that trams could be made ready for service as required. The shed staff, assisted by the grooming conductors, attended to the running in and out of trams and the lowering or lifting of grips.

The turntable was employed to reverse the dummy when necessary so that it went into service with the grip dies opening in the correct direction. Unlike some other cable tram systems, the Melbourne system used a side opening grip that was not symmetrical on the center line of the cable slot. This meant that the grip opening had to be oriented in the correct direction for normal operation.

As a result of this design feature, there were limitations on what routes could be through-routed to other routes based on the direction of the grip dies opening. As a result through routing of trams between Bourke, Collins and Flinders Streets via Spencer Street was not possible, although this was often put forward by members of the public as a method of reducing city congestion caused by shunting.

Route	Direction of grip opening
	North	South	East	West
Nicholson St	Bourke St			Nicholson & Evelyn Sts
Fitzroy	Collins St			Brunswick & Gisborne Sts, & St Georges Rd
Clifton Hill	Gertrude & Bourke Sts			Plenty & Heidelberg Rds, Smith& Evelyn Sts
Northcote				High St
Carlton	Johnston, Elgin & Lonsdale Sts			Lygon, Russell & Swanston Sts
Victoria St	Collins & Victoria Sts, Victoria Pde			Gisborne St
Richmond	Bridge & Wellington Rds, & Flinders St		Spencer St
Toorak		Toorak & Domain Rds		Swanston & Park Sts, & St Kilda Rd
Prahran		Toorak & Domain Rds		Swanston, Chapel & Park Sts, & St Kilda Rd
Brighton Road				Brighton & St Kilda Rds, High & Swanston Sts
Esplanade St Kilda	Fitzroy St			Acland & Swanton Sts, St Kilda Rd & Esplanade
Windsor	Fitzroy & Wellington Sts			Acland St & Esplanade
South Melbourne	Bridport, Park & Collins Sts			Montague, Clarendon, Moray & Market Sts, Victoria Ave & City Rd
Port Melbourne	Beach & Collins Sts			Bay, Moray, Market & Gisborne Sts, & City Rd
North Melbourne		Queensberry & Victoria Sts, & Flemington Rd		Abbotsford, Errol & Elizabeth Sts
West Melbourne		Lonsdale St		Abbotsford, Errol & Elizabeth Sts
Brunswick				Sydney Rd & Elizabeth St
North Carlton	Elgin & Lonsdale Sts			Rathdowne, Lygon, Russell & Swanston Sts

Another example of this is that North Carlton trams could not be through-routed to West Melbourne, despite both routes operating on Lonsdale St on their respective sides of Swanston St.

In the early 1920s, the M&MTB constructed double cable tracks in Lonsdale St between Swanston & Elizabeth Sts, in order to through route Brighton Rd and North Melbourne trams. This reduced city shunting of trams at both Queensberry St (Brighton Rd trams) and Flinders St (North Melbourne trams). It will be seen from the above table that this was possible due to the facing of the grip openings for both these routes. However, this through-routing was short-lived, due to the early conversion of Swanston St trams to electric traction.

Trams were also turned periodically to allow both sides to be weathered equally. All trams passed over the examination pit prior to entering service, where a member of the shed staff inspected the undergear and sounded each wheel with a hammer for crack detection.

The shed staff normally moved the trams within the depot building by manhandling them between actions for the purposes of cleaning and maintenance. Traverser tables were used to transfer rolling stock from one depot track to another. It was suggested once to equip the traverser tables with ball bearings in order to reduce manhandling effort, so one of them was modified appropriately. However the experiment was unsuccessful due to the difficulty of stopping it at the required position. It was also too lively when a car was being pushed off the traverser table, as it would tend to roll away from the stationary position, resulting in a minor derailment. This could have been overcome by provision of a locking mechanism, but this would have taken extra time during busy periods.

The only depot where traverser tables were fitted with a locking mechanism was Brunswick, where horses were used inside the depot for the movement of bogie trailers, due to their greater weight. The locking mechanism was required to stop sideways movement of the table as a result of an indirect pull by the horses when moving the cars.

In order to accommodate the bogie trailers at Brunswick, the traverser tables were longer than standard at 22 feet long, and were supported by three pairs of wheels on three rails on the traverser track rather than the standard two at all other depots. Horses were also used to move the traverser tables at Brunswick, which required them to step up and down heights of about 12 inches around the traverser track. This task was carried out at all other depots by manpower.

“Fordson” tractors were later used to tow cars in and out of depots except at Brunswick, which retained horses to the end, due to the need to use them to operate the large traverser tables.

All body work on bogie trailers was carried out at Brunswick depot, so a paint shop was provided for repainting them. The bogies were transported to the workshops by horse-drawn lorry, but the dummies were run to the workshops for maintenance as for all other depots.

Another unusual feature at Brunswick depot was the provision of a run-out track with a slot and tunnel for the grip. This enabled the grip for one dummy to be lowered into position while it was standing over the inspection pit at the same time as another dummy was being equipped outside the track. This procedure was necessary to cope with the running in and out of trams for the heavy traffic on the Brunswick line, which called for 30 to 45 second headways at peak hour loadings.

Car Depots – Maintenance

The maintenance car depots and plant was entirely carried out by the workshop staff under the direction of the Workshops Superintendent. The necessary staff to handle all building repairs were employed at the workshops, including plumbers, carpenters and painters. If work in the nature of new buildings or bricklaying became necessary, tenders were called for the work to be done.

The traversers and turntables together with any tools or equipment were kept in good condition by the Workshops. The standard nature of this equipment enabled the changeover of spare traverses or turntables (held at the Workshops) at short notice, except at Brunswick. At this depot long traverser tables were used due to the stabling of the bogie cable trailers, so there were two in normal use with an additional traverser table held as a spare.

The tracks in the depots, including the run-ins and run-outs, were maintained by the permanent way staff under the direction of the Engine House Superintendents.

Footnotes

[4] The Toorak terminus was at the corner of Toorak Road and Irving Road.

[5] Melbourne tramway usage is to refer to the line towards the city as the up line and the line away from the city as the down line, as per normal railway parlance. British practice was followed in that left hand track running was the standard for the system.