The Adelaide D type tram was a class of trams operated by the

Municipal Tramways Trust The Municipal Tramways Trust (MTT) was established by the Government of South Australia in December 1906 to purchase all of the horse-drawn tramways in Adelaide, South Australia. The Trust subsequently also ran petrol and diesel buses and elect ...

on the Adelaide tram network from 1910 until 1958.

History

Between 1910 and 1912, A Pengelly & Co of

Adelaide Adelaide ( , ; ) is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and most populous city of South Australia, as well as the list of cities in Australia by population, fifth-most populous city in Australia. The name "Adelaide" may refer to ei ...

assembled 50 bogie closed combination trams for the

(MTT) from

knock-down kits A knock-down kit (also knockdown kit, knocked-down kit, or simply knockdown or KD) is a collection of parts required to assemble a product. The parts are typically manufactured in one country or region, and then exported to another country or r ...

manufactured by the

JG Brill Company The J. G. Brill Company manufactured tram, streetcars,Young, Andrew D. (1997). ''Veteran & Vintage Transit'', p. 101. St. Louis: Archway Publishing. interurban coaches, motor buses, trolleybuses and passenger car (rail), railroad cars in ...

Philadelphia Philadelphia ( ), colloquially referred to as Philly, is the List of municipalities in Pennsylvania, most populous city in the U.S. state of Pennsylvania and the List of United States cities by population, sixth-most populous city in the Unit ...

."Adelaide's Bogie Combination Trams" ''

Trolley Wire The Sydney Tramway Museum, operated by the South Pacific Electric Railway Co-operative Society, is Australia's oldest tramway museum and the largest in the southern hemisphere. It is located at Loftus in the southern suburbs of Sydney. History ...

'' issue 323 November 2010 pages 3-11D type tram 192 (1912)
Tramway Museum, St Kilda Numbered 121-170, they were built to provide increased passenger carrying capacity for the planned expansion of Adelaide's electric tramway network into the outer suburbs. When the MTT introduced an alphabetic classification system in 1923, they were classified as the D type. A further 20 were built as open combination trams numbered 101-120 that later became the E type. All were delivered with 22E

bogie A bogie ( ) (or truck in North American English) comprises two or more Wheelset (rail transport), wheelsets (two Railroad wheel, wheels on an axle), in a frame, attached under a vehicle by a pivot. Bogies take various forms in various modes ...

s, the sets under 121-125 being manufactured by JG Brill Company, the remainder by

Brush Electrical Machines Brush Electrical Machines is a manufacturer of electrical generators typically for gas turbine and steam turbine driven applications. The main office is based at Loughborough in Leicestershire, UK. History Charles Francis Brush, born in Cleve ...

. Meanwhile, in 1912

Duncan & Fraser Duncan & Fraser Limited was a vehicle manufacturing company founded in 1865 in Adelaide, South Australia that built horse-drawn carriages and horse trams, and subsequently bodies for trains, electric trams and motor cars, becoming one of the larg ...

(Adelaide) had built four almost identical trams (there were only slight differences in detail between the trams of the two manufacturers, such as the Duncan & Fraser cars having concave rocker panels rather than convex); for the

Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust The Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust (PMTT) was a former tram operator in Melbourne, Australia. The trust was formed in 1907, with its first line operating in 1910. Its functions were taken over by the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board in ...

Melbourne Melbourne ( , ; Boonwurrung language, Boonwurrung/ or ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and List of cities in Australia by population, most populous city of the States and territories of Australia, Australian state of Victori ...

, and were allocated numbers 21 to 24. In 1916 they were sold to the

Hawthorn Tramways Trust The Hawthorn Tramways Trust was a tram operator in Melbourne, Australia. Its assets and liabilities were transferred to the Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board on 2 February 1920. History The Hawthorn Tramways Trust (HTT) was formed pursuan ...

(HTT), where they retained fleet numbers 21 to 24.O Class
Vicsig All passed to the

Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board The Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (MMTB) was a government-owned authority that was responsible for the tram network in Melbourne, Australia between 1919 and 1983, when it was merged into the Metropolitan Transit Authority. It had be ...

(MMTB) on 2 February 1920 when it took over the HTT, being renumbered 127 to 130 and designated the O-class. Due to their unpopularity in Melbourne, and having built sufficient standard W-class trams to render smaller groups of older non-standard cars surplus, the O-class were amongst the first electric trams to be disposed of by the MMTB. All four were sold to the MTT and returned to Adelaide in January 1927 entering service as D type trams 191 to 194 (renumbered from 128, 130, 127, and 129 respectively).Kings, Keith S. "Transcriptions of Preston Workshops Tramcar Record Cards", various pp. During the 1920s all the Metropolitan cars had their track brakes removed when pneumatic brake equipment was fitted, although unlike the Adelaide trams, the former O-class trams had their brake notches disabled when air brakes were fitted in Melbourne. Due to the dangers faced by conductors collecting fares while balancing on footboards, an aisle was cut through four of the six cross-bench seats in 1935 - except for numbers 191 to 194 which had already had five seats so treated prior to leaving Melbourne. The last D types remained in service until the closure of the street-based tramway network in 1958.

Preservation

One has been preserved: *192 by the

Tramway Museum, St Kilda The Tramway Museum, St Kilda is Australia's principal museum of the 19th and 20th century trams of Adelaide, South Australia. It is situated at St Kilda, north of the centre of Adelaide. It is operated by the Australian Electric Transport Muse ...

References

{{Adelaide public transport, state=collapsed Adelaide tram vehicles