Editing Trams in Melbourne (section)

===Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board===
{{Main|Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board}}
[[File:Flinders Street Station, Melbourne, at the intersection of Swanston Street and Flinders Street, 1927 - Glass plate.jpg|thumb|right|Intersection of [[Swanston Street|Swanston]] and [[Flinders Street, Melbourne|Flinders]] Streets showing electric and cable trams, 1927]]
The Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) was formed in July 1919 to take control of Melbourne's cable tram network, six of the seven electric tramway companies, and the last horse tram. By 1940, all cable and horse tram lines had been abandoned or converted to either electric tram or bus operation.

Alex Cameron was its full-time chairman.<ref name=mmtb/> The tramway network had both cable and electric traction and had been constructed by different bodies without any uniform system. Under Cameron, the MMTB brought these systems under its control, extending the electric lines, and converting the existing cable-system to electric traction.<ref name="Alex Cameron: father of Melbourne's electric trams"/><ref>{{Cite Australian Dictionary of Biography |id2=cameron-alexander-5471 |title=
Alexander Cameron (1864–1940) |author=Kathleen Thomson |year=1979 |volume=7 |access-date=4 November 2011 |archive-date=14 April 2011 |url=http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070534b.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110414134813/http://adbonline.anu.edu.au/biogs/A070534b.htm |url-status=dead }}</ref> To solve operational and maintenance problem the MMTB introduced in 1923 the iconic [[W-class Melbourne tram|W-class tram]] and phased out the other models.<ref name="Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board W Class No 380">{{cite web |url=http://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/trams/mmtb380.htm |work=Friends of Hawthorn Tram Depot |title=Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board W Class No 380 |access-date=23 October 2011 |archive-date=5 May 2013 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130505061117/http://hawthorntramdepot.org.au/trams/mmtb380.htm |url-status=live }}</ref> The [[Preston Workshops]] were constructed about this time to manufacture and maintain the new tram fleet.<ref name="Vines2011">{{Cite web |url=http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/heritage/publications-and-research/thematic-and-typological-studies/tram-heritage-study |title=Vines, G. 2010 ''Melbourne Tramway Heritage Study'', report to Heritage Victoria |access-date=8 October 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20130501135113/http://www.dpcd.vic.gov.au/heritage/publications-and-research/thematic-and-typological-studies/tram-heritage-study |archive-date=1 May 2013 |url-status=dead }}</ref>

In March 1923 Alex Cameron went overseas to investigate traffic problems. He returned next year, confirmed in his long-held opinions that electric trams were superior to buses and that overhead wires were preferable to the underground conduit (cable) system. Alex Cameron remained chairman there until 1935. He died a few years later in 1940, the same year the last of the cable tram services in Melbourne ended.<ref name="Alex Cameron: father of Melbourne's electric trams"/>

The MMTB generated further patronage by developing the enormous [[Wattle Park, Melbourne|Wattle Park]] in the 1920s and 1930s, it had inherited Wattle Park from the Hawthorn Tramways Trust with the HTTs takeover by the MMTB.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/papers/wattlepk.htm |title=Wattle Park: a tramway tradition |author=Russell Jones |year=2003 |work=Friends of Hawthorn Tram Depot |access-date=23 October 2011 |archive-date=8 October 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20111008025144/http://www.hawthorntramdepot.org.au/papers/wattlepk.htm |url-status=live }}</ref>

After World War II other Australian cities began to replace their trams with buses. However, in Melbourne, the Bourke Street buses were replaced by trams in 1955, and new lines opened to [[Preston, Victoria|East Preston]] and [[Brunswick East]].

[[File:Melbourne tram surf.jpg|thumb|right| An overcrowded East Preston tram in [[Fitzroy North]], 1944]]
Melbourne's tram usage peaked at 260 million trips in 1949, before dropping sharply to 200 million the following year in 1950.<ref name="TDIA">Transport Demand Information Atlas, Vol 1</ref> However usage defied the trend and bounced back in 1951, but began a gradual decline in usage which would continue until 1970.<ref name="TDIA" /> During the same period bus use also went into decline and buses have never proved as popular with passengers as trams at any time in Melbourne's history.

By the 1970s Melbourne was the only Australian city with a major tram network.<ref>Keenan, David R. "Melbourne's Tramways in 1974." (Transit Press, 1974)</ref> Melbourne resisted the trend to shut down the network for three major reasons: partly because the city's wide streets and geometric street pattern made trams more practicable than in many other cities; partly because of resistance from the [[trade union|unions]]; and partly because the Chairman of the MMTB, [[Robert Risson|Sir Robert Risson]], successfully argued that the cost of ripping up the concrete-embedded tram tracks would be prohibitive. Also, the infrastructure and vehicles were relatively new, having replaced Cable Tram equipment in only the 1920s–1940s. This destroyed the argument used by many other cities, which was that renewal of the tram system would cost more than replacing it with buses. There is a 1960s colour film called "Citizen Tram" on YouTube commissioned by Risson too.<ref>Archived at [https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211205/BPh-WCdO0sc Ghostarchive]{{cbignore}} and the [https://web.archive.org/web/20191002191339/https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPh-WCdO0sc&gl=US&hl=en Wayback Machine]{{cbignore}}: {{cite web| url = https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPh-WCdO0sc| title = "Citizen Tram" (1960s MMTB Film) | website=[[YouTube]]| date = 15 October 2011 }}{{cbignore}}</ref>

By the mid-1970s, as other cities became increasingly choked in traffic and air pollution, Melbourne was convinced that its decision to retain its trams was the correct one, even though patronage had been declining since the 1950s in the face of increasing use of cars and the shift to the outer suburbs, beyond the tram network's limits.

The first tram line extension in over twenty years took place in 1978, along [[Burwood Highway]]. The W-class trams were gradually replaced by the new Z-class trams in the 1970s, and by the A-class trams and the larger, articulated B-class trams in the 1980s.

In 1980, the controversial [[Lonie Report]] recommended the closure of seven tram lines. Public protests and union action resulted in the closures not being carried out.<ref>{{cite web |url=http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/swin:8497/SOURCE3 |title=Political factors in the rebuilding of mass transit |author=John Andrew Stone |year=2008 |publisher=[[Swinburne University of Technology]] |pages=183–186 |access-date=11 November 2011 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120522113208/http://researchbank.swinburne.edu.au/vital/access/services/Download/swin:8497/SOURCE3 |archive-date=22 May 2012 |url-status=dead }}</ref>