Repost 2019:
The #cabletram #enginehouse on the corner of Nicholson & Gertrude Street, with that cute but rather precarious corner oriel/tower room, a #signalcabin, where a man must’ve sat for hours making sure the Clifton Hill trams went round the corner, and the North Fitzroy trams went straight ahead. Required skill and timing since the #cabletrams had to get up some speed and then let go of the cable to do the corner, since the cables didn’t do curves. Also strange to think this place had huge steam engines and a boiler and a chimney puffing smoke, but it did. Designed by the tramways architect #AlexanderDavidson, and built 1887, it’s a curious almost naive eclectic thing, with #polychromebrick with features drawing from Romanesque, Italianate, Flemish and his own imagination. Note the annoying concentration of fat modern #trampoles, they could’ve attached the wires to building. Current use is the tram control centre I believe, or maybe disaster control, whatever that is.
Sneaked interior shot thanks Chris Rodda 
Not this engine house but would have been same. 
Storey of Melbourne 