Five Million in Trams

Sun (Auckland), Volume II, Issue 357, 18 May 1928, Page 8

Five Million in Trams

OUTLAY FOR DOMINION Eight Tramway Systems Operating WHILE the Transport Commission is sitting - in Auckland. it is of interest to recall that this city led the way in the establishment, in New Zealand, of electric trams operated on a large scale. That now operating - in Auckland is the oldest of the principal tramway systems in the Dominion, though actually it was Dunedin that pioneered the introduction of electricity for passenger transport purposes.

The opening of the Auckland tramways system in November, 1902, after the opening had been delayed because several motormen, engaged in Australia, were drowned in the wreck of the Elingamite, was the climax to a long series of negotiations between the city and the tramways company, which continued to operate the system until it was taken over by the city a few years ago. Auckland at that time had a population of 67,000, and was a great deal larger than the several small boroughs, such as Wanganui, Napier, New Plymouth and Invercargill, that are now supporting tramway services. Dunedin, which was the first to follow Auckland, had a population of just over 50,000. A small private system owned by the Dunedin and Roslyn Tramway Company, which put down one mile of track, had been installed in Dunedin in 1899, but it was not until Christmas Eve, 1903, after a year’s trial in Auckland had proved the reliability of the new

power, that Dunedin replaced, with electric cars, the quaint horse-drawn conveyances that had served it faithfully for a quarter of a century. The following year, in 1904, Wellington opened its present system. The capital at that time had a compact population of 64,000 to provide traffic for its services, and it has always since had the advantage of thicklysettled districts to serve. Meanwhile Christchurch, with

55,000 people, was carrying on with its old horse and steam trams. One of the latter, an archaic spectacle, can still be seen occasionally in Cathedral Square. To Aucklanders it is reminiscent of the Takapuna tram. Not until 1905 did Christchurch install electric trams, which are operated by the only Tramways Board in the Dominion. The principal centres of New Zealand had thus introduced trams in close succession: Auckland, 1902; Dunedin, 1901 V: Wellington, 1904; Christchurch, 1905. Three years after Christchurch came progressive Wanganui, which had decided that its population of only 8,000 could suppoft a modern transport system. In the light of later experience this would be considered a hazardous venture, but it proved entirely successful, and to-day Wanganui has a well-organised and efficient service to meet the needs of its 26,000 people. Invercargill in 1912, Napier and Gisborne a year later, and New Plymouth in 1916, joined in with. their own tramway facilities. Just recently Gisborne, which installed storagebattery cars that had a chequered career, decided to close its system and rely on motor-buses. Palmerston North, another growing borough, was on the verge of adopting trams in 1920, but instead tried buses, and has apparently found them satisfactory. There are. thus s till only eight municipalities which run electric transport systems, but between them these systems serve half a million people, maintain 3,500 employees on their pay-rolls, and carry 170 million passengers a year. HEAVY CAPITAL OUTLAY The magnitude of the electric transport enterprises for so young a country is revealed in the heavy capital outlay, over £5,000,000 for the eight systems, of which the Auckland system alone has involved a capital expenditure of £1,681,382, over half of this sum being represented by expenditure on permanent way. Auckland easily leads, also, in volume of traffic, this city’s tramways carrying 38 per cent, of all the passengers transported by electric cars in the Dominion. The effect of motor-bus competition, a factor much in the limelight recently, has been felt by all tramway concerns, and is visible in the decline in passengers carried per car mile on all services. Altogether, the various tramway concerns have 702 vehicles, of different types (excluding buses), in commission at the present time. Discarded trams are put to diverse uses, which is shown by the fact that an old tram is the tennis pavilion for Auckland tramwaymen at the Gaunt Street depot. Were all New Zealand’s electric trams to set forth, fully laden, at once, there would be 29,003 people, exclusive of straphangers, enjoying a ride.