6 December 2024

The old tram shelter at St Vincent Plaza (the interchange at the bottom of Brunswick Street) actually has a bit of a history – here’s what I said in 2014 when I took the pics: This cute #rusticstyle #tramshelter was built in 1933, designed by tramways board architect F G Monsborough, and it was originally on the other side (see b&w pic 1969). While I was at the @nationaltrustvic I helped with the restoration of all the tram shelters in 1996, and suggested they should all be ‘tramways’ cream & green (the colours used on the W Class trams), even though paint scrapes showed this one was originally cream & brown. Then a few years later in 2002 the stop was rebuilt, with 3 platforms, and the only room for the shelter was the other side (they nearly didn’t keep it at all). In the process of moving it some bricks were broken, the replacements didn’t match, so they had to start again with all new bricks. And the conservation architects @lovellchen decided to go for the original cream & brown after all.

Update : in 2022, @yarratrams repainted it cream & green (last pic from them), stating they were ‘the original colours matching those on St Kilda Road’ – or maybe someone just didn’t like the brown. In fact just found an early photo of it at the Melbourne Tram Museum, and looks like it was all dark brown. The paint scrapes showed the colours and shades changed regularly, but tram cream and green was the most common on all them.

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