Tramtastic

On the weekend of the 26th and 27th, The Sydney Tram Museum at Loftus held a 2 day event celebrating and commiserating the 150th anniversary of the first Tram in Sydney and the 50th anniversary of the last tram to run. The weekend was divided into pre 1930 trams on the Saturday and post 1930 trams on the Sunday. I've a bit of a "thing" for Sydney's trams and I would have liked to go both days but I could only go 1 day so Pre-1930 it had to be.
So, the family and I went out after lunch on Saturday together with my next door neighbour and his daughter. Everyone had a great time riding the trams especially yours truly, my son didn't want to leave (neither did I) as he wanted to ride the trams at night. Dinner time called so we dropped in to our favourite hamburger store, Paul's Famous Hamburgers at Tom Ugly's Bridge at Sylvania.
Tram wise, the 2 C's were running as well as the F class, J, L/P, N, P, and Coupled O's. Additionally, Ballast Tram 42s and Scrubber 134s (Ex D) got a run as well. The highlight for me was the sight of coupled O class 1111 and 805. Not since the closure of the tramway system has this sight been seen and to see it once again was fantastic. There was a big crowd on the Saturday and seeing the 2 O's with nearly full loads gives you an idea at how truly superb these vehicles were for moving large amounts of people quickly. 2 O's will handle 80 people seated each and when you add a standing crush load of around 130 each, you can see why they were so efficient. And we stupidly threw them away, a complete travesty.
It was a great day with the only downside was getting out my Canon SLR to take some shots and realising that the batteries were flat........
Luckily, my better half had her iPhone4 so I took some shots with that. I found it quite difficult to frame shots with it but at least I got some shots of the day



I had a ride in O 805 and the thing that struck me was the smell. O 1111 doesn't have any particular smell about it but 805 had this musty "old" smell about it. Whether it was the smell of electrical equipment not being used for 50 years or the smell of decades of people riding in it and then it being stored I don't know. The interior looked like it had just made it's last run before withdrawl, whatever it was it made riding in 805 something special. I hope it stays at the museum for a long time. One day, I'm going to have to model some part of the Sydney Tramway. I'm thinking O Scale and I like the possibilities of the Enfield line where it terminated at Ashfield. There was a connection to the NSWGR for the transfer of trams via the goods yard that was once there. My Grandmother used to live in Orchard Crescent which borders the goods yard and I spent many an hour sitting on the steps of the goods yard as a boy watching the trains go by. Anyway, it's something to dream about. So many things to model, so little time