Another great planning map from almost 100 years ago. Melbourne, of course, is one city that has retained its trams over the years, rather than tearing them all out, only to eventually replace them with light rail or new trams in the modern day.
Here’s a great map that we’ve just added to our archives today. Authored by the M&MTB’s Chief Engineer T.P. Strickland in 1923 and overlaid on a Sands & McDougall map of Metropolitan Melbourne, it shows the extent of the cable tram network and the electric routes inherited by the Board four years earlier in 1919, and a slew of proposed lines as outlined in the “General Scheme for Future Tramways.” Some of these were eventually constructed, many others remain unrealised.
Most curious: the proposal for lines on the Footscray system to Sunshine and the City via Dynon Road; the original plan to join Spencer St/Clarendon St via Hanna St (now Kings Way) to Toorak Rd; a curious loop arrangement near Caulfield Station; the extensive network in the bayside suburbs of Elsternwick, Glenhuntly, and Moorabbin; and all of the connections in the inner northern suburbs of Fitzroy, Northcote, Preston, Brunswick, and Coburg.