The red AEC Routemaster double-deck bus is an internationally recognised icon of London, while Melbournes equivalent is the green and cream W class electric tram. However, few Melburnians now remember that for a period of fourteen years, from 1940 to 1954, double deck buses very like those of London were an integral part of the Melbourne city landscape.
The Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (M&MTB) program to convert cable tram lines to electric traction resumed in 1935, after the recovery from the Great Depression, with the objective of replacing all the remaining cable tram routes. First to be converted were the three Elizabeth Street routes. While two routes Flemington Road and Sydney Road were converted to electric tramways, the third line to West Melbourne was replaced with single deck buses, due to the relatively low patronage levels.
Subsequently, for the same reason the Rathdowne Street and Port Melbourne cable routes were also replaced by single deck buses, while the heavily patronised South Melbourne Beach route was converted to an electric tram service.
The question of the three remaining cable tram routes to Northcote, North Fitzroy and Collingwood remained open until 1937, when the M&MTB resolved to convert them to electric tramways. However, the following year it was decided that due to the financial losses on the Collingwood cable tram route, conversion to electric traction was not justified, and it too would be replaced by a bus service.
This left unsolved the problem of what to do with the two remaining Bourke Street routes, to Northcote and North Fitzroy. These were very heavily trafficked, as they serviced the CBDs main theatre and shopping district, as well as major suburban shopping strips in High Street, Smith Street and Nicholson Street.
In 1938, the M&MTB Chairman (H.H. Bell) visited Europe and North America to examine the latest developments in urban transport. Bell was so impressed by the advances in diesel bus technology in handling heavily patronised routes that he came away determined to convert the Bourke Street cable tram routes to bus operation. Part of the attraction of this concept was the potential to save costs by leaving the cable tram tracks in situ.
He prevailed upon the Board to support his decision, rationalising that after a twelve-month trial period, if the bus service was unsuitable for Bourke Street, the M&MTB could proceed with converting the routes to electric tramways as originally planned. The surplus buses could then be used on developing other services.
Leyland was successful in winning the subsequent 1939 tender for seventy bus chassis. Twenty-five were to be single deck Leyland Tiger RTS8c buses, with the bodies manufactured by the M&MTB Preston Workshops. The forty-five double deck buses were built on Leyland Titan TD5c ‘Gearless’ chassis. One double deck body was imported from Britain as a ‘knocked-down’ kit [1], while construction of the remaining forty-four bodies was divided between the Melbourne firms of Martin & King Pty Ltd (17 bodies) and Cheetham & Borwick (17 bodies), together with the noted Adelaide coachbuilder J.A. Lawton & Sons Ltd (10 bodies).
Presumably, the body building contract was not awarded to a single company as no local coachbuilder had the ability to deliver all seventy bus bodies by the target date of March 1940.
The double deck buses were numbered from 201 to 245 in the M&MTB fleet [2], the fully imported bus being numbered last in the series. They were painted in the standard tramway green livery, with numbering and lettering in gold leaf. They were designed so that the top decks could be easily removed, as a contingency should the buses be required for wartime use by the Department of Defence.
However, the Bourke Street buses did not enter service according to their original March 1940 target. The Federal Government requested the M&MTB defer closing of the remaining cable tram routes until the cables were no longer usable, in order to preserve wartime fuel stocks. As a result, the buses did not start running until the evening of 26 October 1940, running on the Bourke Street lines to Northcote via Queens Parade and High Street, and to East Brunswick via Nicholson Street, the latter route being extended from the former cable tram terminus in North Fitzroy. The routes operated out of the new Central Bus Garage [3], located on the site of the old cable tram workshops in Nicholson Street, North Fitzroy.
By August 1943 it was clear that the conversion of the Bourke Street routes to bus operation had been a failure, for a number of reasons:
The M&MTB declared that the post-war conversion of the two Bourke Street bus routes to electric tramways would be a priority. It submitted this project as a part of a package of capital works to the Commonwealth National Works Council, to be completed within the first two years after the war. However, it would take significantly longer to achieve this objective.
In 1947 the M&MTB further decided that no more double-deck buses would
be purchased, and the existing fleet would be retired with the conversion
of the Bourke Street routes to electric tramways. All future bus purchases
by the M&MTB were to be single deck designs, due to the restricted route
availability imposed by low rail bridges, and the history of problems
encountered on the Bourke Street services. This policy would remain
in place to the end of government-operated urban bus routes, and beyond
[4].
However, due to a lack of support from the State Government, it was not until after the Cain Labor government gained power in 1952 that approval for the conversion of the Bourke Street bus routes to electric tramways [5] was obtained. This work commenced on 10 March 1954, the day after the conclusion of the Royal Visit of HM Queen Elizabeth II. The Northcote [6] route was completed on 26 June 1955, while the East Brunswick [7] route was not finished until 6 April 1956. Both routes were operated by W class trams the true icon of Melbourne.
Worn out before they were ultimately replaced by trams, the Leyland double deck buses were all withdrawn by January 1954. Each vehicle travelled an average distance of about 429,000 miles over its fourteen years in service, never having been used on any other routes. The buses were sold in two lots, the first twenty in July 1953, and the second tranche of twenty-five in March 1955. Their new owners mostly used the buses as sheds or extra accommodation at holiday homes.
The Leyland double deck buses did leave one enduring mark on Melbourne the lowered roadway under the rail bridge in Queens Parade, Clifton Hill, excavated so the double deck buses could clear the bridge.
[1] The imported double-deck body was 7'6" wide the British standard while the locally built bodies were all 8'0" wide.
[2] The double deck buses were given the Victorian registration plates AT-201 to AT-245, allocated according to the corresponding M&MTB fleet number:
[3] Now used by Transdev as its North Fitzroy Bus Depot.
[4] In 2015, the private operator CDC Melbourne acquired a double deck route bus for use in the Wyndham area of the western suburbs. This was the first use of double deck buses on urban street routes since the Leyland double deckers of the M&MTB, although double deck buses have been used on the express Skybus services to Melbourne Airport.
[5] The Bourke Street electric tramways built in 1955-56 now form a part of routes 86 to Bundoora RMIT and 96 to East Brunswick.
[6] The conversion of the Northcote route required the construction of a new depot in East Preston, which was closed in April 2016, having been replaced by the conversion of Preston Workshops to a running depot.
[7] The conversion of the East Brunswick route resulted in the addition of a small tram depot to the Central Bus Garage, and renaming of the facility to North Fitzroy Depot. The tram depot closed on 18 December 1993, although it reopened for a short period in 2008-09 while Southbank Depot was undergoing refurbishment.
The Age (1939), Bus Bodies Double-Decker Contracts, 8 April 1939
The Age (1947), Double-decker buses to go, 18 November 1947
The Age (1954), Double-Decker Buses Go from City, 25 March 1954
The Argus (1941), Double-Decker Snaps Pole, 6 March 1941
The Argus (1953), Who wants to buy a Bourke St bus?, 30 July 1953
The Argus (1954), We lose our double-deckers, 25 March 1954
The Argus (1955), Like a double decker bus?, 1 March 1955
CDC Melbourne (2015), A little bit of London in Melbourne
Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board (1935-1957), Annual Reports