Holier than thou: the battle for Sunday morning trams

In today’s largely secular Melbourne, it can be difficult to understand the influence that Christianity formerly had on the culture and ethos of our city. While Sunday is still largely a day of rest and relaxation, a day to be spent in enjoyment with family and friends, over one hundred years ago there was tremendous pressure to spend Sundays in church, reinforcing the fact that Melbourne was fundamentally a Christian place.

To do otherwise was viewed as a threat to the morals and well-being of society, against the laws of common decency. It was widely accepted that the only proper use for Sunday mornings was Christian worship at church. The Presbyterian, Methodist and Wesleyan denominations were particularly vehement on this matter, as was the Women’s Christian Temperance Union (WCTU).

From 1900, these groups were commonly described with the pejorative label of wowser, particularly those cliques in positions of power, who were convinced that only their version of morality was valid, and that enjoyment of earthly pleasures – especially alcohol, secular music, dancing, gambling, mixed bathing and sport – should be driven out of society. The wowsers held the view that the lower classes had to be ‘protected’ against their baser instincts, so it was necessary to legislate against the possibility they may indulge in sinful activities. They also believed that the ‘Continental Sunday’ – describing the unrestricted use of Sundays for trade or leisure, such as was common at the time in Western Europe – was especially immoral, and that British rectitude had to be defended against any backsliding into the ways of the dissolute French or Italians.

Therefore, Sunday trading of most businesses in Victoria was illegal up until 1996, and sporting events and venues were closed – both amateur and professional.

MTOC cable tram number 73 at the top end of Collins Street, c1890. Photograph courtesy State Library VictoriaMTOC cable tram number 73 at the top end of Collins Street, c1890. By the shadows early on a summer morning – but not a Sunday.
Photograph courtesy State Library of Victoria.

In 1885 when the Melbourne Tramway & Omnibus Company (MTOC) began running cable trams, there was no question that the trams would stay in their depots on Sunday mornings. On that day trams did not venture out into the Melbourne streets until after noon.

At the time, the six-day working week was standard for the labouring classes. As ownership of private motor vehicles was not widespread until the 1950s, the restriction on urban public transport meant that daytime leisure outside the home – such as visiting distant parks or the beach – was feasible only on Sunday afternoons.

The more liberal of the Melbourne establishment took up Sunday morning trams as a key issue to improve the quality of life for the working class – what today would be called work-life balance. They were particularly concerned that leisure time be spent improving physical and mental health in the outdoors at beaches and parks – influenced, no doubt, by the tenets of muscular Christianity, which promoted such activities as godly and righteous – a view held in contention with the wowsers. Over the following decades, there would be consistent lobbying of the tramway authorities to introduce tram operation on Sunday mornings.

However, in 1905 the State Government under Premier Thomas Bent summarily declared that the Victorian Railways should not run any trains on Sundays until after 1pm. This act was strongly supported by the moderator of the Presbyterian Assembly, Reverend W.S. Rolland, who stated that while some people may have been disadvantaged by not being able to catch a train to church, most lived within walking distance of a place of worship. The major objective of the ban on Sunday morning trains from his perspective was to ensure the cancellation of special Sunday excursion trains taking people to holiday resorts.

When approached as to whether MTOC would step into the gap to provide Sunday morning public transport in Melbourne, the Chairman of the company, Francis Boardman Clapp, declined to give a definitive answer. Instead, he blandly advised that the issue of Sunday morning trams was a matter for the public to decide.

The issue of Sunday morning trams next rose to public prominence in December 1914, when the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust (PMTT) was considering a Sunday morning service at 20 minute intervals between Kew and St Kilda Beach, although the service would stop for the church hour, between 11am and noon. The Chairman of the PMTT, Alex Cameron, was of Scottish descent and Presbyterian, so it is a little surprising that the Trust approached its constituent municipalities for approval to obtain an amendment to the existing Order-in-Council to enable Sunday morning operation. While the PMTT had the authority to run the trams on Sunday mornings, it wished to apply a premium fare of 3d, hence the need for an amendment. Presumably the increase was to cover the higher cost of operation due to the need to pay traffic staff penalty rates.

Alexander Cameron (1864-1940), Photograph from the Melbourne Tram Museum collectionAlexander Cameron (1864-1940), Chairman of the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust 1908-19, Chairman of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board 1919-35.
Photograph from the Melbourne Tram Museum collection.

From a technical perspective, the engineer and manager of the PMTT, H.S. Dix, reported that much of the maintenance work on overhead, feeders and substations occurred on Sundays between the hours of 6am and noon. This could be rearranged providing a relatively infrequent service ran no earlier than 9am. More flexibility in power supply management would be in place once the Kew substation entered service in 1915, which in conjunction with the Elsternwick battery would enable the network to be run without the Coldblo Road substation at Malvern until noon, as long as the Sunday morning service was restricted to no more than 13 to 15 cars at 25 minute intervals on the main routes, and thirty to fifty minute intervals on the outlying routes [1].

Traffic staff would be paid the standard Sunday rate of time and a quarter, while substation attendants and two inspectors would also be required.

Additionally, trackwork normally carried out on Sundays, such as renewal of curves and special work [2], and other track repairs, would not be seriously affected by a long interval service such as was being proposed.

In short, Dix advised there was no technical or managerial issues with running a Sunday morning service on the PMTT system, although he added a proviso that he expected “a good deal of antagonism running cars during the church hour on Sunday morning”.

A straw poll of residents along the line had revealed that they were generally in favour of the proposal. There was some support from church-goers to run electric trams on Sunday mornings, to make it easier to attend church services, although other regular church attendees wished to be totally dissociated from any who supported the concept.

Interest in this matter was not confined to the metropolis. Reports in the country press commented that it was strange that trams did not run on Sunday mornings, so it was clear it was an issue of State significance.

The outcome of the proposal was decided at the March 1915 Trust meeting. The proposal was defeated four votes to three. The votes for were the delegates from Hawthorn and Caulfield councils, together with Alex Cameron, while the votes against were from St Kilda, Prahran, Malvern and Kew councils.

The debates in the individual municipal chambers were covered in the metropolitan press, and make fascinating reading, highlighting the tremendous degree of secularisation that has transformed the Australian ethos over the last hundred years – so much so that the Australia of the early twentieth century appears more like a foreign country to our modern eyes.

Some of the views of individual councillors are particularly illuminating. Cr. Lewis of Malvern held a dualist view – his was concerned that Sunday trams would not pay, together with the desire that the “sanctity of Sunday morning should not be disturbed”. The opinion of his colleague Cr. Carroll had distinct classist overtones. He claimed that people desiring to travel on Sunday mornings could hire motors (motor vehicles) or hansom cabs – never mind that this option was beyond the means of the working classes. No doubt the councillors were also influenced by the objecting correspondence from various Christian denominations, including the Presbyterians and Methodists.

The views of Hawthorn councillors reflected the concern that Sunday morning trams would operate at a loss, together with the worry that tram noise would disturb church services, as was the case on Sunday afternoons and evenings. Cr. Burton had a more enlightened view than his counterpart at Malvern, as he thought that Sunday morning trams would be of great benefit to those who did not have the means to travel in motor cars, while an opposing view from Cr. Russell was that services should not proceed as there had been no public protest, hence were not needed – in essence a “don’t rock the boat” approach. The motion to support Sunday morning services was narrowly passed by one vote.

Cr. Love at St Kilda held that Sunday morning trams were not warranted for religious, commercial or social purposes, and were “an innovation abhorrent to those who wished a quiet Sunday”. The St Kilda Council rejected the proposal by a majority of one vote.

The councillors of Kew voted unanimously against the proposal, objecting to “any innovation that might disturb the Sabbath-like quietness of the town”. Their counterparts at Prahran held the same unanimous views, considering it as “a retrograde idea, and the thin edge of a wedge [3]”, as well as being opposed to “any moves in the direction of a Continental Sunday”. Hawthorn councillors who held the same opinion, however, were in a minority.

This episode laid to rest the implementation of Sunday morning tram services until the formation of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) in 1919. The other municipal tramways operating in Melbourne – the Northcote Council cable tramway, the Hawthorn Tramways Trust and the Melbourne, Brunswick & Coburg Tramways Trust – did not proceed with Sunday morning services before they were acquired by the M&MTB in February 1920, along with the PMTT.

Of course, criticism did not go away of the tramway operators’ position, or of the famous quiet of the Melbourne Sunday.

One commentator in The Age in 1919 suggested that returning soldiers would not be content with the restrictions on Sunday activities – not when for four years they had been required to fight and die seven days a week, including on the Sabbath. On one instance when returning soldiers disembarked from their troopship on a Sunday morning in May 1918, adverse comment was made in the same paper regarding the unavailability of trams, and the difficulty it created for families and friends wishing to welcome them home after years away on active war service.

The M&MTB considered Sunday morning trams in 1922, but declined to act. When asked to comment, the Secretary of the M&MTB, Mr Strangward, merely stated that the reasons for not providing a service were “complicated”.

The Weekly Times declared in December 1923 that on hot summer Sundays it was “unfair that the wealthy who possessed motor cars could have a delightful time at many beauty spots around the Bay”, while “the mass of the people derived no benefit from their one holiday”, despite Melbourne being so close to the beach, as there were no Sunday morning trams available. Instead, children of working men were restricted to “playing in their small backyards in the baking heat of the day... instead of frolicking in cool waters at the beach”.

This view reinforced the classist impact of the ban on Sunday morning trams.

In 1924 Alex Cameron, who was by now M&MTB Chairman, advised that the running of Sunday morning trams would not be a profitable venture, due to the need to pay staff at the penalty rate of time and a half. Additionally, the expense of running the power houses for the M&MTB cable trams, together with the electric tram substation equipment, could not be justified given the relatively small number of people who would frequent the Sunday morning service.

To provide a replacement service during the conversion of the Swanston Street and Brighton Road cable tramway to electric traction, the M&MTB acquired the Melbourne to Elsternwick bus route from the privately-run Trak Motorbus Company in 1925. The company had run a very popular Sunday morning schedule, and the M&MTB was pressured to continue that service.

When the conversion work and the extension of the tram line along Brighton Road to Elsternwick was completed in 1926, the Elsternwick bus service was withdrawn. However, the replacement electric trams were not run on Sunday mornings, much to the disappointment of the former bus patrons. The M&MTB was roundly criticised for not running trams on the route on Sunday mornings, when there was a proven demand for them. This pattern was repeated during the conversion of the Toorak cable tram route, when the replacement bus service – which also had a Sunday morning service – was itself replaced by electric trams, which did not run on Sunday mornings.

Over the next ten years, an almost annual charade would play out. There would be demands for Sunday morning trams in the media, questioning why Melbourne did not have this valuable service when other Australian cities – especially Sydney – seemed to have no trouble in delivering them. The M&MTB would announce a review, and public hopes were raised, until the inevitable announcement came that they were not practicable.

Only the reasons changed from year to year:

  • (1926) The M&MTB Board was in caretaker mode, awaiting new appointments to be made by the State Government, so was not able to make strategic decisions.
  • (1927) The M&MTB was waiting for a decision from the Arbitration Court on Sunday rates of pay before any progress could be made.
  • (1928) There was little demand for a “luxury” service that would not pay.
  • (1932) Sunday morning trams were an “unprecedented proposal” that could not be justified based on forty years of operating tramways in Melbourne.

There were unfavourable comparisons with the Victorian Railways under the management of the energetic and indefatigable Harold Clapp, which had introduced Sunday morning trains on both suburban and country lines in 1926, to both acclaim and opprobrium. In contrast, the M&MTB under Alex Cameron refused to even attempt a trial Sunday morning service.

The only crack in this position was the running of Sunday morning special tram services for the opening and dedication of the Shrine of Remembrance by the Duke of Gloucester on 11 November 1934, attended by over 300,000 people. However, this event was very much a “one-off”, and even then there were objections in the press by wowsers, despite the solemnity of the occasion.

This stasis was only broken with the abrupt forced retirement of Alex Cameron as M&MTB Chairman on 18 December 1935, and his replacement by H.H. Bell, the former Deputy Chairman.

Hector Hercules Bell (1876-1964). Photograph from the Melbourne Tram Museum collectionHector Hercules Bell (1876-1964), Chairman of the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board 1935-49 – initiator of Sunday morning and all-night trams in Melbourne.
Photograph from the Melbourne Tram Museum collection.

On 13 August 1936, Bell announced a six-month trial of Sunday morning trams from 4 October 1936, on all cable and electric lines, except for the Footscray local lines. Unfortunately for the working-class residents of Footscray, the M&MTB believed that the provision of a Sunday morning service in the western suburbs could not be justified. Permanent provision of Sunday morning trams, it was declared, would be dependent on the public making sufficient use of the facility during the trial to justify the expense.

Services would begin at 8am, and run at 30 minute intervals, until the existing Sunday schedule started at 1pm. Sunday services would now require two shifts rather than one, and staff would be paid the normal Sunday rate of time and a half. Based on the limited experience obtained from operations on the morning of the opening of the Shrine of Remembrance, it was expected that the loss on northern and western lines would be heavy, but would be offset by traffic on the eastern and southern lines.

To maximise patronage, the M&MTB planned the introduction of Sunday family concession return tickets, for two adults and up to four children, or one adult and up to five children for 2/6 [4]. They could be used from any point on the system to the beaches of Port Melbourne, South Melbourne, St Kilda or Point Ormond, or to Wattle Park, as long as the journey began before noon. The tickets would come in two colours – green for the beaches, and yellow for Wattle Park. After obtaining consent from the Governor-in-Council, the tickets were introduced on 1 November 1936.

It did not take long for criticism to start. Reverend George Alfred Judkins, the director of the Methodist Social Service Department, accused the M&MTB of seeking financial gain by luring families away from religious observance and inducing them to abandon themselves to hedonism on the Lord’s Day. He forecast the decay of the moral and spiritual foundations of civilisation, by people turning away from God to become pleasure-seeking pagans, and precipitating catastrophe, all through the introduction of Sunday morning trams.

Judkins also lobbied the Melbourne City Council against holding Sunday concerts in the Town Hall – clearly he was a true wowser.

Reverend George Alfred Judkins (1871-1958). Photograph courtesy State Library of VictoriaUndated photograph of Reverend George Alfred Judkins (1871-1958) as a young man, from a carte de visite.
Photograph courtesy State Library of Victoria.

Bell – who had become estranged from the Anglican church after an incident in 1921 when he was abused from the pulpit – was unmoved by the histrionics, informing the Reverend Judkins that the M&MTB could not review its decision. Judkins continued his rantings, charging the M&MTB with breaking the sanctity of the Lord’s Day, and denying man the opportunity of Sunday worship. He further alleged the M&MTB was enticing people away from God to beaches and parks through the issue of cheap family concession tickets.

The first Sunday morning tram services departed on schedule as planned, on 4 October 1936.

Patronage greatly exceeded expectations – over 18,000 people on the first Sunday, despite inclement weather, followed by over 22,000 on the second Sunday. Bell was very pleased with progress, noting that many of the passengers were using the services to attend church. He stated that if the returns continued to improve, as he expected, Sunday morning services would become a regular feature of tramway operation in Melbourne.

Ironically, a churchgoer complained that the Sunday family concessions were not available for use on Saturdays, depriving this benefit from the large number of church supporters who could not in conscience share in them. He thought the M&MTB should make these tickets available on Saturdays, when the godly could use them. Unfortunately for him, Saturday trams were already well-patronised, and did not need the incentive of cheap excursion tickets to boost revenue.

The wowsers continued to harp at the innovation of Sunday morning trams. The Baptist Union said they were “an insidious encroachment on the sanctity of the Christian Sunday”, while the WCTU [5] held that the rest and peace of a Melbourne Sunday morning no longer existed, and the nation that forgot the Sabbath would not keep its place as a leader in the world.

The M&MTB kept on running the trams.

Sunday morning tram services ran at a profit from the first year of operations, more than off-setting the losses of running all-night trams, introduced later the same financial year. Eventually the criticism slowly died away. Trams running in the suburban and city streets of Melbourne on Sunday mornings are still with us today [6], just as they do on all other days.

W2 class tram in Batman Avenue, 1964. Photograph courtesy State Library of VictoriaOn a misty Sunday morning in 1964 on the north bank of the Yarra River, a W2 class tram on route 74 travels along Batman Avenue on its way out to the suburban terminus of Burwood.
Photograph from the AE Smith Collection, State Library of Victoria.

Melbourne residents now revel in what would once have been called a Continental Sunday, and regular church attendance is at an all-time low. Perhaps the early twentieth century wowsers were right, and Sunday morning trams were indeed “the thin edge of the wedge”.

Bibliography

The Age (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Kew to St Kilda, 8 December 1914

The Age (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Prahran Council Antagonistic, 15 December 1914

The Age (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Kew Council Opposes, 17 December 1914

The Age (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Hawthorn Council Approves, 24 December 1914

The Age (1915), Sunday Morning Trams – Prahran-Malvern Trust Decides Against Them, 8 March 1915

The Age (1918), Return of Soldiers – A Sunday Morning Welcome, 27 May 1918

The Age (1919), A Rational Sunday, 7 June 1919

The Age (1926), Sunday Morning Trains – No Move by Trams – Board Still Asleep, 19 November 1926

The Age (1926), Why Not Sunday Morning Trams?, 10 December 1926

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams – Board to Receive Report – Additional Facilities Required, 14 January 1927

The Age (1927), General News – Sunday Morning Trams, 19 February 1927

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams – Board Defers Decision, 8 April 1927

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams – Tramway Board Still Considering, 27 April 1927

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams – Decision Still Deferred, 29 April 1927

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams, 7 June 1927

The Age (1927), Sunday Morning Trams, 26 October 1927

The Age (1932), Sunday Morning Trams – Christmas Day Service – Tramways Board’s Attitude, 7 December 1932

The Age (1932), Tramway Service – No Trams on Sunday Morning, 23 December 1932

The Age (1934), Sunday Trams and Trains, 14 November 1934

The Age (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Six Months’ Trial, 14 August 1936

The Age (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Details of Schedule, 24 September 1936

The Age (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Board Chairman Satisfied – About 18,000 Passengers, 6 October 1936

The Age (1936), Sunday Excursions – Family Party Tram Tickets, 22 October 1936

The Age (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Protest by Women, 30 October 1936

The Argus (1892), Marriages – Cameron-Wright, 23 July 1892

The Argus (1913), Sunday Morning Trams, 19 August 1913

The Argus (1913), Sunday Morning Trams, 21 August 1913

The Argus (1914), Sunday Morning Trams, 10 December 1914

The Argus (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Caulfield Council Supports, 16 December 1914

The Argus (1921), Criticism by Clergymen – Richmond Councillors Angry, 24 May 1921

The Argus (1924), Sunday Tram Services, 30 July 1924

The Argus (1925), Sunday Morning ’Buses – Tramway Board’s Service, 31 January 1925

The Argus (1925), Tramway ’Buses – Sunday Morning Services, 5 February 1925

The Argus (1926), Trams and ’Buses – Rearranged Services, 27 August 1926

The Argus (1926), Sunday Morning Trams – Policy of the Board, 31 August 1926

The Argus (1926), Sunday Morning ’Buses – Protests at Elsternwick, 15 September 1926

The Argus (1926), Sunday Morning Trams – Prospect of Services – Board Awaits Reappointment, 10 December 1926

The Argus (1927), Sunday Morning Trams – Report Considered – Further Information Sought, 8 April 1927

The Argus (1927), Toorak Trams – Opening on Sunday, 12 April 1927

The Argus (1927), Sunday Trains and Trams – Morning Services, 21 October 1927

The Argus (1928), Sunday Morning Trams – Introduction Unlikely, 2 August 1928

The Argus (1928), Sunday Trams – No Morning Services, 22 December 1928

The Argus (1932), Christmas Morning – No Trams, And Only Church Trains, 6 December 1932

The Argus (1936), Sunday Trams – Morning Services – Begin in October, 14 August 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Church Department Protests, 18 August 1936

The Argus (1936), Letters to the Editor – Sunday Morning Trams, 22 August 1936

The Argus (1936), Trams on Sunday Mornings – Encourage Beach Trips, 1 September 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Services Begin on October 4, 24 September 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – 18,000 Passengers Carried, 6 October 1936

The Argus (1936), All-Night and Sunday Trams – Baptists Anxious, 14 October 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Morning Trams Opposed – Destroy Peace of City, 30 October 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Transport, 13 November 1936

The Argus (1936), Sunday Transport, 20 November 1936

The Ballarat Star (1905), Sunday Morning Suburban Trains, 20 September 1905

Brighton Southern Cross (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Caulfield Agrees to Proposal, 19 December 1914

Chiltern and Howlong Times and Ovens Register (1915), No Sunday Morning Trams, 16 February 1915

Davison, G. & Dunstan, K. (1983), George Alfred Judkins (1871-1958), Australian Dictionary of Biography

Hawthorn, Camberwell, Kew Citizen (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Kew to St Kilda, 11 December 1914

Jones, R. (2008), Hector Hercules Bell – ringing in the new, Melbourne Tram Museum

Jones, R. (2009), Alex Cameron – father of Melbourne’s trams, Melbourne Tram Museum

Keating, J. D. (1970), Mind the Curve!, Melbourne University Press

Malvern Courier and Caulfield Mirror (1915), Sunday Morning Trams, 12 March 1915

Malvern News (1915), Sunday Morning Trams – Malvern Council Reject Proposal, 2 January 1915

Malvern Standard (1914), Sunday Morning Electric Trams, 21 November 1914

Malvern Standard (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – St Kilda Council Objects, 26 December 1914

Malvern Standard (1914), Sunday Morning Trams, 26 December 1914

McCalman, J. (1993), Bell, Hector Hercules (1876-1964), Australian Dictionary of Biography

Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (1937), Annual Report

North Melbourne Courier and West Melbourne Advertiser (1904), The Sunday Question Again, 30 September 1904

Ozwords (1997), Wow for Wowser, Volume 3 Number 1 May 1997, page 7, Australian National University

Prahran Chronicle (1914), Don’t Want Sunday Trams, 19 December 1914

Prahran Chronicle (1914), Sunday Morning Trams, 26 December 1914

The Prahran Telegraph (1914), Sunday Morning Trams – Prahran Council Opposes Running, 19 December 1914

The Prahran Telegraph (1915), Tramway Talk – Sunday Morning Trams, 13 March 1915

Shepparton Advertiser (1936), Special Fares on Sunday Morning Trams, 28 September 1936

Shepparton Advertiser (1936), Sunday Morning Trams – Attack by WCTU, 30 October 1936

The Weekly Times (1923), Sunday Morning Trams, 1 December 1923

Young, J. & Spearritt, P. (2008), eMelbourne – the city past and present – Retailing, University of Melbourne

Footnotes

[1] PMTT manager H.S. Dix was clearly focused on running a Sunday morning service on more routes than just the trial Kew to St Kilda route proposed in 1914.

[2] Special work is a tramways engineering term that refers to the rail castings used to form tramway points, and diamond and ‘H’ crossings, often made of a hardened manganese steel alloy.

[3] “The thin edge of the wedge” is a cliché for an assertion that a relatively small first step leads to a chain of related events culminating in some significant negative effect. The expression is usually used as a fear-mongering device in argument, and is often ascribed to those who have a malevolent hidden objective for implementing an apparently harmless change. The term probably derives from the historic use of small wedges in splitting stone in quarries, or their similar use in splitting timber.

[4] In 1936, a return trip from Burwood to South Melbourne Beach for a family of two adults and four children would cost 8/- using standard non-concessional fares, so 2/6 for a Sunday excursion ticket was a very good deal.

[5] Lila Monsborough, the wife of the M&MTB architect, Alan Monsborough, was elected vice-president of the Victorian WCTU at the time of introduction of Sunday morning trams.

[6] Prior to the introduction of one-man tram services, three tram routes (3, 77 and 82) were replaced by one-man bus services on Sundays. With the removal of conductors from trams, there was no longer a cost justification for their operation with one-man buses, so tram routes 3 and 82 resumed Sunday running. Route 77 had been abolished some years previously.