TRAMWAY COMPARISONS.
WHAT VICTORIA AND NEW SOUTH WALES ARE DOING. (nr TELEGRAPH—SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) Christchurch, April IJ. A subject regarding which Mr. G. W. Rmst sell gained some information whilo in Australia was that of tramways. The Melbourne cable tramways, in his opinion, showed tho effects of private ownership in the worst possible light from'the point of view of the benefits obtained by the travelling public. Although they carried about 60,000,000 passengers per annum, there was only one small section in the whole city where penny fares aro charged. His impression was that when the Melbourne tramways fall in(;o the hands of the municipality, as they ■ will in a few years,.the Victorians will follow the lead of tho Sydney people and nationalise them instead of municipalising them.
The Sydney tramways showed tho enormous,benefit of public ownership. Melbourne has' a population 1 of 540,000.and Sydney 580,000. Melbourno has been built up.-'by its suburbs, ■ and Sydney is being largely built up by its. magnificent tramway system, which anticipates population instead of waiting for it. The Sydney tramways have cost £3,732,000, the earnings in 1908 totalled £1,011,000, the working expenses totalled £809,000, and the percentage of'profit on the capital 'invested was £-5 Bs. lOd. per cent. In many'cases when, lines were,, laid down thero was comparatively little population 'to support the trams, but the experience had been that wherever the trams extended the population followed.
Ho had been particularly interested in the line to La'Perouse, a line about ten miles in length to the sea coast. It goes through an almost''unpopulated district, and was constructed to-open up a new seaside resort. The cheapness of its construction had struck him. It is really an ordinary railway line to which electrical_ traction has been applied.' Tho rails are laid on sleepers ballasted with loose metal, while the overhead gear is hung on comparatively light poles.
Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi
https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/DOM19090414.2.93
Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka
Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 481, 14 April 1909, Page 10
Word count
Tapeke kupu
309TRAMWAY COMPARISONS. Dominion, Volume 2, Issue 481, 14 April 1909, Page 10
Using this item
Te whakamahi i tēnei tūemi
Stuff Ltd is the copyright owner for the Dominion. You can reproduce in-copyright material from this newspaper for non-commercial use under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International licence (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0). This newspaper is not available for commercial use without the consent of Stuff Ltd. For advice on reproduction of out-of-copyright material from this newspaper, please refer to the Copyright guide.
Log in