I am back again for the Blogging from A to Z April Challenge so have made the commitment to blog every day in April except the Sundays. Some bloggers choose a Theme, and others do random posts. For me, a theme works better, so the theme  I’ve chosen for 2016 is Bendigo, a large provincial city in central Victoria, Australia.  I live just outside Bendigo and have been in this area for only 9 years, so feel I still have ‘visitors eyes’.

T is for Trams,  or correctly, Bendigo Tramways.  Trams began to operate in Bendigo in 1890 and are still operating and extremely popular with tourists. The Bendigo Trams are Australasia’s largest tourist tramway.

Today, the trams are tourist trams only. In 2009, a trial was done to use the trams as commuter trams, but the trial failed as there wasn’t enough interest in the community.

But generally, the community of Bendigo is very proud of the tourist trams or ‘talking trams’ as they are called.

Bendigo’s original tram depot is still standing and still in use to house the trams, and undertake repairs. As the oldest operating tram depot, the Bendigo Tramways Depot is listed as heritage protected. Forty Five trams make up the full fleet, with 13 trams being ‘talking trams’.  Check the video below to see more about the Tramways Depot in Bendigo.

The tram depot has an on-site archive, which records, catalogues and protects historical information photos, mechanical plans and artifacts concerning the trams and Bendigo Tramways history.

Tourists can take the ‘Vintage Talking Tram Tour’ to see the main tourist sights of Bendigo. The ‘talking tram’ gives information about sights as it passes and the history of Bendigo is explained when historical sights are passed. The tram stops at many stops along the way, so tourists can ‘hop on, hop off’ at any time they see a sight that they would like to visit.

No visit to Bendigo is complete, with a tour on the Vintage Talking Tram, for both adults and children.

sources: Wikipedia, bendigotramways.com, youtube.com