[LINK] The Red Flag Act

[Michael Skeggs mike@bystander.net]

I expect in a few years when petrol is dearer ($8 a liter by 2018 is
the CSIRO upper projection) there will be a resurgence in trams. When
I lived in Glebe you could occasionally spot the tracks still in place
where a pothole had revealed them. Restoring trams/light rail with
Melbourne style road sharing would be pretty trivial, certainly
cheaper than some sort of electrical battery powered bus.
Probably, though, in NSW the compressed natural gas fueled buses will
get the nod. There is still plenty of gas to be had, and they seem to
work OK, judging from the ones I have ridden (although I confess I
don't know if they have an adequate range, compared to diesel).
Regards,
Michael Skeggs

On 27 June 2011 20:39, Kim Holburn <kim at holburn.net> wrote:
>
> On 2011/Jun/27, at 2:12 PM, Marghanita da Cruz wrote:
>> I started to glaze over a the "plight" of the car... here is another perspective:
>>> Closure
>>> The Sydney tram system was Australia's largest, at 290 km, in 1933. But because the system consisted of several isolated sections, it was relatively easy to close it down, piece by piece. This process started in 1939 with the Manly system. The last Pitt St. and Castlereigh St. tram ran in 1957 on a Saturday night at 1 am. Within minutes of the tram's run the overhead wires were pulled down, and the next morning (a Sunday) the tracks were paved over, to ensure there would be no return of the trams even if the buses should prove inadequate. This shows pretty clearly that there were forces at work other than just desire for efficiency here.
>>> By 1958 the North Shore system was closed, and in 1961, 100 years after the first tram had run, the last line closed.
>>> The replacement buses were loss-making from the start, and within just a few years the City Council was starting to regret the loss of the trams, but it was too late. In 1975, a proposal was floating to re-instate a tram loop from Central Station to Circular Quay along Pitt and Castlereigh Streets. In 1995, this proposal has re-appeared, attached to the Darling Harbour LRV plan.
>> <http://www.railpage.org.au/tram/sydhist.html>
>
> I don't remember Sydney trams but when I was growing up near North Sydney there were double decker electric trolley buses.  They had a depot in Falcon street which was there for years after the buses had gone but was eventually pulled down.
>
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> Kim Holburn
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