Many Things were happening in the "roaring twenties" and one of the most significant was the release of the electric tram. Instead of horses pulling trams around al day, electricity was doing it for them. These trams were said to revolutionise transport forever, they were correct too as electric trams are still being used and produced today. With the technology in the twenties, producing a tram at a rate of once a week was amazing and it was available to the general public making city life easier than ever. People would use the trams as a new way of entertainment, and getting to work and back and getting around the city quickly.
These trams were great for Melbourne and set the bench mark for the rest of the states.
In the twenties the tram was fantastic but what was even better was the big boom of the motor car.
In tram.
Steam Tram
Panoramic view across the Mt Buffalo plateau. The ...Henry Ford produced the first ever production line of the motor car in 1914 and Australia had taken a big part of it in the twenties by producing a number of T models for Australians. Unlike the tram, if you wanted to use a car you would have to buy one. The richer people tended to buy these more and more which bought the prices down for the average people to buy. With the car being around now it was only natural for people that wanted to travel. Once again this was only for the rich to take part in. They would holiday in Mt Buffalo and go skiing but the rest of the people would stay around their area. In today's modern life we tend to take these things for granted but back in the twenties driving around in a car at twenty miles an hour was a huge thing for the people of that era.
With all these new fantastic inventions it seemed that life was so easy and that nothing could go wrong, whoever like the old saying goes, "what goes up must come down" and that's exactly what happened in the twenties. It was in 1923 where the first signs of braking started with crowdedness, strikes, unemployment and excessive traffic. The motor car was taking over the horse and cart on the road which caused the excessive traffic and with the road rules being very confusing it wasn't uncommon for a riots to break out. There were many jobs with all the new products however the money aspect wasn't too good so the employees would go on strike in order to get money. The companies didn't care because there were many people that want jobs so they fired the old and hired the new ones. This left hundreds with no jobs and the government and unions battled it out to try and get these people their jobs back.
So as you can see the twenties were a great start for the transport industry. After all the hassles that it produced the industry is still strong today.
Portrait of Henry Ford (ca. 1919)
C class tram number 3017 at the St Vincent's Plaza...