The Sydney Tramway Museum is Australia's oldest tramway museum and the largest in the southern hemisphere. It is located at Loftus in the southern suburbs of Sydney.
History
The museum was officially opened at its original site on the edge of the Royal National Park by NSW Deputy PremierPat Hills in 1965. The facilities were basic, initially a four-track shed built with second hand materials and approximately 800 metres of running track. It was relocated to a larger site across the Princes Highway adjacent to Loftus railway station which opened on 19 March 1988. The museum operates a demonstration tramway with over of track from the southern skirt of Sutherland CBD through Loftus across the Princes Hwy and into the Royal National Park. It has a fully functional workshop complete with Pits and overhead cranes that permits full restorations of trams to take place as well as running repairs. During the late 1980s, the telemovies "Harp in the South" and "A Poor Man's Orange" had scenes filmed at the new site adjacent to Loftus Railway Station. On 1 May 1993 The Tramway Museum commenced operations on previous heavy rail "Royal National Park Line" that ceased operations in 1991 as an extension of its Heritage tramway operations. In 2001 the Museum was the recipient of the YMCA facade, that was previously located at the corner of Pitt and Bathurst Street. The facade was relocated by Meriton to make way for a new building being constructed at the same location. This huge impressive sandstone structure dating from the 1880s makes a spectacular backdrop when entering the museum complex from the front gates. The building is not finished yet, and is still being worked on as funding permits. On 23 October 2015 at about 11:30 pm the museum storage shed was broken into by graffiti artists and caught fire. Located off the main museum site, at the Museums original location in the Royal National Park near Loftus Oval, the shed housed the museum's reserve collection of six trams, four buses and a double-decker bus chassis dating to 1937. The shed and contents were destroyed in the blaze. In Jan 2018 after a three-year redevelopment of the North Terminus area, in conjunction with the Sydney Trains Heritage unit, a new Annex was opened utilizing the disused 1926 Railway electrical substation. The fully refurbished heritage substation building and freshly relaid track and new tram waiting shed has added a whole new dimension to the Sutherland line tram trip, creating a new destination in itself with more exciting exhibits. The 2018 Film "Ladies in Black" had both live action scenes and film stock for CGI segments filmed around the Railway Square Waiting Shed that is located in the southern end of the museum site.
Operations
The museum has an extensive collection of trams from Sydney and other cities in Australia, as well as from other places around the world. There are two tram lines radiating from the museum that are used to run tram rides for museum visitors. One line runs north towards Sutherland, paralleling Rawson Avenue in the way that parts of Sydney's tram system operated. The second runs to the south and utilises the Royal National Park branch railway line that was constructed in 1886 and closed to suburban trains in June 1991. In 1993 the museum converted the line to tramway standards and connected it to the then existing Sutherland line to establish what is now a popular means of access to the world's second oldest national park. The line terminates at Royal National Park railway station. The Museum opens and operates trams on Wednesdays, Sundays, public holidays and on selected weekdays during school holidays. Charter operations, wedding and commercial photography shoots can be arranged for other days by contacting the booking officer. The Sydney Tramway Museum is run entirely by volunteers and self funds its day-to-day activities, restorations, maintenance and construction programs from gate takings and donations from the generous public.
The Sydney Tramway Museum publishes Trolley Wire on behalf of most tramway museums around the country. Published quarterly, it carries articles on tramways around the world and news from the various Australasian heritage tramways.
