In the State of Victoria there were two well known towns of Ballarat and Bendigo that had local tramways run by the State Electricity Commission.
The town of Ballarat located 115km (71 miles) from Melbourne commenced their tramways in 1887 and didn't close until the 19th September 1971, and Bendigo located 152km (94 miles) from Melbourne commenced their tramway system in June 1890 and closed on the 16th April 1972. Such was the local love of their tramways both cities have retained portions of the original route as tourist tramways.
I was lucky to be able to visit both systems just before their closures. I was in my early 20's and at the time tramways were my main interest so I visited the city after travelling out from Melbourne by train. To record the trams I had taken my trusty Bolex 8mm movie camera. There is such a difference between the technologies of then and now. So after recording as much as I could on the day, I also decided to travel to the second sister city of Bendigo. I wasn't aware of any direct transport and didn't want to travel back into Melbourne and then back up to Bendigo, so I hitched a ride and lucky it only took two car rides to get there.
So the same pattern started, riding all the routes and taking as much film I could afford.
One of the benefits of these trips is that I still have two 400 foot reels of footage from both systems. There are now better ways of sharing material now than way back then. So my plan is to eventually have the film digitised and then uploaded to Youtube so it can be shared, after all it is over 50 years old.
I have been lucky enough to still retain friendship of school mates that I left way back finishing school in 1966 and in 2019 we ventured off to Victoria to a 'rail' weekend. Part of that trip involved a visit to Bendigo and naturally enough it included a visit to the Bendigo Tramway to see the depot and a ride on their tourist tramway.
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So these are a few photos of the Bendigo tourist tramway as it still exists and it was great to be able to relive my memories of Bendigo even though I am now much older. One day I will get back to Ballarat and ride their tourist system as well.