The Sydney Tramway Museum is an operating tramway museum, located in Loftus

Loftus, New South Wales

Loftus is a suburb, in southern Sydney, in the state of New South Wales, Australia. Loftus is located 29 kilometres south of the Sydney central business district, in the local government area of the Sutherland Shire....

 in the southern suburbs of Sydney

Sydney

Sydney is the most populous city in Australia and the state capital of New South Wales. Sydney is located on Australia's south-east coast of the Tasman Sea. As of June 2010, the greater metropolitan area had an approximate population of 4.6 million people...

, Australia

Australia

Australia , officially the Commonwealth of Australia, is a country in the Southern Hemisphere comprising the mainland of the Australian continent, the island of Tasmania, and numerous smaller islands in the Indian and Pacific Oceans. It is the world's sixth-largest country by total area...

. Sydney Tramway Museum is the trading name of the South Pacific Electric Railway (SPER).

The museum was officially opened at its original site at the edge of the Royal National Park by NSW Deputy Premier Pat Hills in 1965. It relocated to a larger site across the Princes Hwy which opened on 19 March 1988. Prior to the opening of the new site the museum had operating tramways at both locations.

The museum has an extensive collection of trams

Tram

A tram is a passenger rail vehicle which runs on tracks along public urban streets and also sometimes on separate rights of way. It may also run between cities and/or towns , and/or partially grade separated even in the cities...

 from Sydney and from cities in Australia and around the world. There are two tram lines from the museum used to run tram rides for museum visitors. One line runs 1.5 km north almost to Sutherland railway station, paralleling a suburban highway in a way typical of Sydney's previous tram system. The second utilises a former railway branch off CityRail's

CityRail

CityRail is an operating brand of RailCorp, a corporation owned by the state government of New South Wales, Australia. It is responsible for providing commuter rail services, and some coach services, in and around Sydney, Newcastle and Wollongong, the three largest cities of New South Wales. It is...

 Illawarra railway line to penetrate 2 km into the Royal National Park

Royal National Park

Royal National Park is a national park in New South Wales, Australia, 29 km south of Sydney CBD.Founded by Sir John Robertson, Acting Premier of New South Wales, and formally proclaimed on 26 April 1879, it is the world's second oldest purposed national park, the first usage of the term...

 that flanks Sydney's southern boundary. A number of Sydney's suburban electric train services used to terminate at Royal National Park, but the line closed in 1991, and Waterfall

Waterfall railway station, Sydney

Waterfall railway station is a Sydney railway station serving the suburb of Waterfall, New South Wales and is the last stop of the suburban section of the Illawarra line. Waterfall station also provides access to Camp Coutts, a large Scout campsite. The station opened in 1886, moving to its present...

 is now the southern terminus for suburban electric train services on the Illawarra line.

The Sydney Tramway museum is run entirely by volunteers and self funds its day to day activities, restorations and construction programs from gate takings and donations from the public.

Publications

The Sydney Tramway Museum publishes Trolley Wire

Trolley Wire

Trolley Wire is the magazine of the Sydney Tramway Museum in Loftus, New South Wales but is also co-published by most of the other albeit smaller tramway museums around the nation....

on behalf of most tramway museums around the country.

External links

• Sydney Tramway Museum website