15 Tramway photos, SMH iPad app

[johnnigh]

Members might find one or two interesting photos if they have the SMH iPad app.

One I remember well is the tram in the harbour at the zoo in 1958. This was a route I often took, from my home at Balmoral Bch to the ferry at Athol Bight (Taronga Zoo). Fortunately I wasn't on the tram that day. The track was wet, the tram just slid off the end, over the rock wall, just dipping the driver's cab in the water. It was well known that trams did a bit of sliding on the steep descent of Athol Wharf Rd to the ferry wharf.

When the trams were replaced by bus, it became one of the easiest for drivers, a short, leafy, route up the hill and over the other side, with long waits at one end or the other. Nonetheless, I was sitting upstairs, front, left hand side of a bus that took a big branch of a street tree while pulling in to a bus stop on Bradley's Head Rd near Union St. Luckily, I only suffered a minor cut. So the bus replacement had its own troubles of a leafy kind.