ODD TRAMWAYS.

Auckland Star, Volume LXV, Issue 21, 25 January 1934, Page 19

ODD TRAMWAYS.

SERVICES ABROAD.

AMERICA AND THE EAST.

"PAY AS YOtr ENTER."

(By WILL LAWSON.)

Despite the inroads on traffic made by the motor bus, every city has its tram=, and, to the traveller, these are always interesting, for each is different from the others. In the cities bordering on the Pacific Ocean the trams are indispensable adjuncts to the cities' services, and make their impressions in the mmds of visitors. In San Francisco the trams dominate the city. They are everywhere, both electric and cable systems, with four tracks of thundering steel monsters roaring, day and night, up and down Market Street, the principal thoroughfare. The city terminus of these suburban trams is at the Ferry Building, -where they wheel round in two wide semi-circles, the city's cars and the company's cars, which are only rivals in Market Street. Once out of that twomile long street, they sweep off oil dilferent routes. And the reason that they race neck-and-neck in Market Street is that when the city built lines to new suburbs where the company declined to operate, the company demanded a prohibitive price to allow the city s cars to run on its lines. So the city laid tracks alongside the company's lines.

Trams in practically all American cities are run on the "pay as you enter • t)lan The conductor, standing on the rear platform, gives change. W times there are extra change men at the termini. The passenger drops tlie nickel (2id) in a little glass box, and it fall* on" a green baize cloth; when several nickels are in, the conductor turns a handle and they disappear, after registering on a machine. Later they taken out again to be used for c . lian S e > and the real day's takings are in the conductor's bag. If a staseren the car without paying, the conductor will put his head inside and say, there's a stranger here who wants to donate something to the poor box. Then the stranger blushes.

Cheap Travelling. In San Francisco the trams travel at high speed everywhere. It is dangerous to cross the four tracks except at inter sections, and even there one nius lively. On the left-hand side the streets leave Market Street at right Down some of them the trams branrh off; at others, branch cars wait. Ihe transfer system of tickets allows one to ride on any cars, without extra: pay, as long as a forward travel ls " tained. To San Mateo, for example one can go ten miles for a nickel. On the other side of Market Street the streets go off diagonally, and 111 neaily all ot these trams run. In addition, a, i y car" starts at the Ferry Building and meanders through highways *?d byways to give connections with all lines, the cable cars of Sacramento and California Streets slide up and down .the steep hills, crossing over the electric cars, which pass under in tunnels. Los Angeles is just as busy in street] cars, but the system, is different. city cars are smaller, and run on narrow tracks, with a third rail aid side for the large cars of the electrl ° trains, which run on the city tracks the outskirts, and then go like the wmd to places as far as SO miles away. One of these places is Mount Lowe, w^ere

the passenger gets from the train into a steep cable car and then into an electric car which runs to a height of 5000 ft, about the highest in any coastal city.

In all the cities of south-eastern America, good electric car services are found. In El Paso, on the Rio Grande, there is an international' tram which runs between El Paso, on American soil, across the river into Ciudad Juarez, the old Mexican capital. It carries the United States flag on one end and the Mexican flag at the other. Usually the Mexican police on duty on the bridge, and the United States officers let the tram and its passengers pass, but occasionally they stop the car and demand all passports or other credentials, and search for contraband liquor.

The feature of the electric cars of New Orleans is the provision of seats at the rear of the car marked 'lor eolouied persons only," and white people must not ride there; any more than coloured people may ride on the ordinary seats. "Jim Crow" cars is their name in the vernacular. In the Far East. The trams of the Far East are used almost entirely by the natives. White people use motor cars. But the tram systems are widespread and efficient, especially in Japan, where, as one travels by rail through the country, trams will suddenly pop up everywhere, in utterly lonely places. These are inter-urban cars, which link towns and serve the farming community. In the cities the trams are taken through the narrowest lanes, and in such a place as Nagasaki, with its old-world narrow streets, it is staggering to meet a tram and to have to pull a car right against the houses or shops to let it pass.

In Hongkong the trams are small, with upper decks, and they follow one route only, linking the city's ends, which are five miles apart, along the waterfront, between Kennedy Town and Happy Valley. As in all Eastern places, the drivers and conductors are natives, but white people use the Hongkong trams. , . , That is not the case, to any extent, in Manila or Singapore, where the motoi car is cheap. In Manila the trams are all American-built and follow Amer.cau practice in operating. But the tracks So through such tortuous streets in the old city, with acute-angle corners, that the wheels are screaming all day long; even liberal application of grease docs not silence them. The Singapore trains are trackless ones. Huge cars like iuffernauts wander along the JJunu with two trolley poles running on overhead wires, giving a wide range ot direction, should the tram have to avoid other traffic. If a tram becomes disabled, it is pushed aside and the otheis maintain the service.

A Steam Relic. One of the queerest trams in the world is the 6teani tram which runs between old Batavia and the modern suburb of Weltevreden. It is an old tram, running under a franchise wlneh will not expire for a time, so that no electric car can be used, except by the present company. This steam car is drawn bv a fireless locomotive, such as were used in the shunting yards of England, and maybe still are used. At the beginning of each trip from Weltevreden to Batavia, the engine i» charged with superheated steam at m o n pressure, and this will carry the tram It a slow speed to Batavia _ and hack, about 10 miles. One man drives. There is no fireman. The vehicles are as strange as the engine. First eome two flat cars, on which crowd coolies with their baskets and other luggage, a passenger car follows, in which natives and Eurasians ride. The engine has a roof, but the funnel goes no lower than the roof and the exhaust pipe is carried up into the funnel. As the tram goes lumbering down the Molenvleit,. orM. Istream Road, in its quaint old-fashioned setting, with natives swimming and washing clothes in the-river, it looks like a survival of medieval times.

Almost as old-fashioned arc many of the trams of Sydney, Australia, where there has been less progress in tram construction and running than anywhere else in Australia or New Zealand. The best that can be said of the Sydney trams is that they carry the crowds, being big, roomy vehicles. The cable cats of Melbourne for long held the record for being old-fashioned, but they have been replaced by electric cars. And one must come back to New Zealand, lo Dunedin, in fact, to see the survival of old cable car systems, up the steep hills of the city.

The battle between supporters of trams and buses for city traffic would have less to fight over if the trams in our cities were as efficient as those of California and Auckland, clean, fairly fast and frequent. We laugh at the old steam tram of Batavia, yet not long ago there were steam trams in Christchurch and Newcastle.