City of Darebin Heritage Study Volume 1 Draft Thematic

VOLUME 2: THEMATIC ENVIRONMENTAL HISTORYunderground cable, powered by a steam-driven winding engine at one end of the system. In1887, the Company opened a tramway to Clifton Hill, but had no plans to extend it across theMerri Creek. In 1888, George Clauscen, former Mayor of Fitzroy, together with several localland speculators, formed the Clifton Hill to Northcote and Preston Tram Co. A tramlinewould encourage the sale of their subdivisions in the area, and the Company set aboutconstructing a cable tramway from the terminus at Clifton Hill to Dundas Street. The worksincluded the widening of the High Street bridge over the Merri Creek, the construction of thebluestone embankment at Rucker’s Hill, and a cable house on the corner of Martin and HighStreets. The first tram ran in 1890, but the service ceased when the company got into financialdifficulties in 1893. It was run intermittently during the 1890s, but the tram service hadmissed the height of the boom and there were too few Northcote and Preston settlers to makethe trams pay. The system fell into disrepair until 1901, when Northcote Council took it over,put it back into working order and ran a regular service. The High Street cable tram continuedin operation until 1940, and was the last of Melbourne’s cable trams still running. Theirreplacement with electric trams had to wait until after the Second World War (Forster,1968:56-7, Lemon, 1983:118-9, 234, 240).Figure 14Northcote Cable Tram (image dateunknown)[DHE, ID 774]Electric tramsEarly in the twentieth century, electric trams were introduced to Melbourne when a privatecompany began running trams to Essendon. In 1907, two local councils formed the Prahran-Malvern Tramways Trust and established a large and successful network in the eastern suburbs.In 1912, agitation began for more tramlines in Darebin, and in 1915 the Fitzroy-Northcote-Preston Tramway Trust was formed to construct two new lines from the North Fitzroy cabletram terminus along St George’s Road, one to Tyler Street East Preston and the other toRegent Street West Preston. After construction was delayed by the First World War, both lineswere opened in 1920, however by then all of Melbourne’s trams had been taken over by therecently formed Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (Carroll & Rule, 1985:137-42).The East Preston line was one of the few Melbourne tramlines to be extended in the latetwentieth century. It was extended along Plenty Road Bundoora to La Trobe University andRMIT University. The old High Street cable tram was eventually converted to the electricsystem in 1955 (Carroll & Rule, 1985:142).37