New Zealand - Trams - The frustration of rural operation, a flock of sheep holds up a citybound tram from Castlecliff Beach during the final week of tramways in Wanganui, September 1950. #602633 #trams Christchurch tramway system - The Christchurch tramway system was an extensive network in Christchurch, New Zealand, with steam and horse trams from 1882. Electric trams ran from 1905 to 1954, when the last line from Cashmere to Papanui was replaced by buses. A loop track was reopened in the central city in 1995 as a tourist attraction. The track is standard gauge, 1,435 mm (4 ft 8 1⁄2 in). - There is now a 2.5-kilometre (1.6 mi) central city loop heritage tram system, opened in February 1995 and running all year round, as well as a 1.4-kilometre (0.87 mi) extension opened in February 2015 and a tram museum at the Ferrymead Heritage Park with operating trams. The extension is part of an additional loop planned and partially constructed during late 2000s, and a new strategy report by Jan Gehl commissioned for Council and published in early 2010 suggested an extension of the tram system (and integration of the trams into the general public transport system) as one of a package of measures aimed at reducing car-dominance in the city. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christchurch_tramway_system) THE END OF THE PENNY SECTION - This is the absorbing story of passenger transport in the urban streets of New Zealand. When the young colony first began to flex its muscles, waggonettes and drays uplifted people from the side of the muddy road to replace the only known means of locomotion within urban communities – Shanks's pony. Next came flimsy-looking horse-trams on steel rails and, later, snorting steam engines. - Soon people could settle in outer suburbs that were brought now within range of employment, with land speculators financing and building lines to the mushrooming estate hamlets. Steep hills were tamed by magic cablecars that climbed with invisible power, and electric trams took over the major traffic routes. - For half a century the trams reigned supreme in our main towns, capturing the imagination of all urban New Zealanders until they were finally eclipsed, first by the trolleybuses and finally by the diesel buses of today. - The story of urban transport is a colourful one and Graham Stewart tells it with evocative text and brilliant photographs. As the story unfolds it becomes not only an accurate account of a vanished age but a valuable social history of early urban New Zealand. - GRAHAM STEWART is the Illustrations Editor of the New Zealand Herald, a position he has held since May 1965. He was born at Auckland in 1932, and educated at Mt Albert Grammar School and Elam School of Fine Arts. In 1950 he began his newspaper career with the New Zealand Herald as a cadet photographer. He travelled extensively for the Herald, and for the Weekly News in its "pink cover" days, before joining the Daily Telegraph in Napier in 1959. He returned to Auckland in 1964. Author: Graham Stewart ISBN: 0589007203 Click the link provided at the top to purchase the book through the MAD on New Zealand Shop - Supporting New Zealand Authors and Artists