13 May 2025
The wonderful castley Malvern Tram Depot, just off Glenferrie Road, near High – that little turret clearly designed to catch the eye. In fact the rest of it is quite plain. It was opened on 30 May 1910 (so the 115th birthday is soon !), and there’s pics of the event, and even some cinema footage if you Google. So great it’s still in use, I guess tram parking isn’t something that new technology has changed !
The depot was designed by Leonard J Flannagan for the newly established Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust, a cooperation between the two municipalities to provide transport in and to the rapidly growing eastern suburbs. The original trams were smallish, past open part closed. Starting with lines along Glenferrie Road (using central poles) and High Street, they added other municipalities and rapidly expanded, reaching north to Kew and south to St Kilda and Elsternwick and well east by 1919, and the very next year the PMTT was absorbed into the government run Melbourne & Metropolitan Tramways Board.
In 1929, the depot was doubled in size with a new shed across the side street, (Colblo Road) effectively taking it over. Down the back there’s a substation from the expansion which apparently still contains the original 1930 ‘rotary converters’ (AC to DC), and all the associated equipment.
Old photos found on Facebook, converter pic from the Heritage Victoria citation.
Storey of Melbourne 