History
The South Australian Railways (SAR) reached Victor Harbor in 1864, when a railway connected pier was constructed. In 1867 this pier was extended to reach Granite Island, the resulting link becaming known as "The Causeway". The railway line continued onto and around the northern edge of the island to where a jetty was constructed. Although railway goods vehicles were routinely horse hauled on this line, no passenger service was offered until 1894, when the SAR decided to utilise an unused horse-drawn tram to offer a passenger service.
From 1900, the horse tramway was operated by private contractors, George and Frank Honeyman, on behalf of the SAR. By the 1950s, the causeway was in need of repair, but a dispute between the operators and the local council meant that in 1954 the causeway was reconstructed without rail tracks. The service continued to operate on Granite Island itself until 1956, when the cars were disposed of. Between 1956 and 1986, a rubber tyred train provided service across the causeway.
The 150th jubilee of South Australia was due to be celebrated in 1986, and a fund was established for special projects to mark the jubilee. Reinstatement of the horse tram was nominated as such a project, and the bid was successful. Replica tram cars were built, tracks were relaid and service recommenced on 14 June 1986.
Read more about this topic: Victor Harbor Horse Drawn Tram
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“The history of any nation follows an undulatory course. In the trough of the wave we find more or less complete anarchy; but the crest is not more or less complete Utopia, but only, at best, a tolerably humane, partially free and fairly just society that invariably carries within itself the seeds of its own decadence.”
—Aldous Huxley (1894–1963)
“The history of work has been, in part, the history of the worker’s body. Production depended on what the body could accomplish with strength and skill. Techniques that improve output have been driven by a general desire to decrease the pain of labor as well as by employers’ intentions to escape dependency upon that knowledge which only the sentient laboring body could provide.”
—Shoshana Zuboff (b. 1951)