Melbourne Tram Museum
One of the world's most significant collections of heritage trams is on display at the equally historic Hawthorn Tram Depot.
Information on this page
Opening hours
The museum is open on the second Saturday of every month from 1 pm to 5 pm. Admission is by donation.
How to get there
The Melbourne Tram Museum is located at the Hawthorn Tram Depot on the corner of Power Street and Riversdale Road, Hawthorn. Melway reference Map 45, B12.
Catch tram number 70 or 75. For timetable details, visit the
Metlink website.
Exhibits
The museum is home to 17 fully-restored trams including:
- a 'toast-rack' bodied V-class from 1906—one of the first electrified trams in Melbourne
- several versions of the well-known W-class trams
- the experimental X-class tram designed for lightly patronised routes
- the prototype of the Z-class which marked the steady modernisation of the fleet when it was introduced in 1975.
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Some of the historic trams on display at Melbourne's
Tram Museum |
Contact details
For more information contact VicTrack on (03) 9619 8819.
History of the Hawthorn Depot
The Hawthorn Tram Depot was opened on 6 April 1916 by the Hawthorn Tramways Trust, which was one of five municipal electric tramways authorities in existence during the second decade the 20th Century. The Trust had electrified the Hawthorn horse tramway that ran from the Yarra River at Bridge Road to Auburn Road and had also constructed new electric lines from Princes Bridge to Burwood and Wattle Park.
The original brick building, constructed in an American Romanesque style, included offices, a substation and a four-track car shed. A second car shed, accommodating three tracks, was added in 1917. A workshop and store was located below the second shed while a separate building to the west housed a horse-drawn tower wagon used to maintain the overhead tram wires.
The Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board took over the Trust in 1920 and in 1925 a tram driver instruction school was installed in the west end of the ground floor. The school was superseded by a larger training facility at the opposite end of the building in the 1960s. From 1940 until the early 1990s, tramway uniforms were manufactured in the workroom in the eastern end of the building's top floor.
During the late 1940s, the original brick facades of the car sheds were demolished to allow access for wide-body trams and the main entrance of the office section was later removed for road widening.
The building ceased to be an operating tram depot in February 1965, although it continued to house trams, training facilities and the uniform manufacturing workroom. In 1996, the depot was included on the Victorian Heritage Register and soon after, was offered for redevelopment. The redevelopment, completed in 2002, included the conversion of the main depot building to residential units and the building of new residential units at the rear of the depot site. The original facades of the two sheds were reconstructed, although all that remains of the second shed is the facade—the rest of the building was replaced by the residential development.
The first shed has been restored and was given a new lease of life in January 2003 when it was officially opened as the Melbourne Tram Museum to house Melbourne's heritage tram fleet.