Government of South Australia in 1906 buys all Adelaide horse-tram assets and forms MTT to run new electric trams
Numbers 42 to Hyde Park and 59 to Edward Street, Kensington: B Type toastrack electric trams in King William Street, Adelaide city, in 1909, the year they were introduced to the Adelaide metropolitan area under the state government-owned Municipal Tramways Trust (MTT).
Image courtesy State Library of South Australia
The South Australian government in 1906 announced its takeover of all Adelaide private horse tramways companies for £280,000 and created the Municipal Tramways Trust (MTT) with the authority to build new electric tramways.
By 1901, Adelaide’s horse trams were a blot on the city and its suburbs. They were too slow and small for a population of 162,000. The unsealed roads needed were either quagmires or dustbowls where each horse left 10 pounds of manure daily.
The first experiment with electric-powered trams was on an Adelaide and Hindmarsh company’s tram to Henley Beach with “Julien’s Patent Electric Traction” in 1889. The trial was ended by the fitted batteries’ poor capacity and the promoter’s deaths in a level-crossing accident.
Commercial interests pursued the South Australian government's support for introducing electric tramways. Most influential of those interests was Francis H. Snow, largely on behalf of London companies British Westinghouse and Callender’s Cable Construction. His scheme involved buying major horse tramways firms and merging them into an electric tramway company with 21 years of exclusive running rights.
Laws for this scheme were passed in 1901 and a referendum held in 1902 but the required funds had been spent and the scheme collapsed. Adelaide’s city council proposed its own scheme backed by different companies but it couldn't raise the capital and J.H. Packard promoted plans that went no further. Under these pressures, the government negotiated with the horse tramway companies and in 1906 announced its takeover of all tramways for £280,000, with the Municipal Tramways Trust (MTT), created by the government, to have the authority to build new electric tramways.
Not all horse tramways companies were purchased. The Glenelg to Marino Company continued until it failed in 1914.
The government’s purchase included 162 trams, 22 other vehicles and 1056 horses. By the 1909 launch of Adelaide's electric trams, 163 horse trams and 650 horses were still under the control of the MTT that continued to use them until 1914 while the network was being electrified.
Purchasing the tramways was funded by government treasury bills and total construction costs capped at £12,000 per mile of track. The £457,000 let in contracts in 1908 included tramways, trams, strengthening the Adelaide bridge over the River Torrens and tracks on jarrah sleepers.
At the official opening on March 9, 1909, of Adelaide's electric tramways system, the wife of South Australian premier Tom Price drove Electric Tram 1 (an A type) from the Hackney depot to Kensington and back, assisted by the MTT’s chief engineer William Goodman.
