H-Series Trams on Heritage Tram runs in Adelaide

Adelaide Metro (who is the organisation responsible for running the Adelaide trains, trams and buses in the Adelaide metropolitan area) organised a Heritage Tram run for a couple of Sundays during August 2013.

Basically Adelaide Metro retired the H-Class Trams in Adelaide a couple of years ago, which had been in continuous service since 1929!

There is only one tram line in Adelaide, which runs from the Entertainment Centre just north of North Adelaide, through the city centre and then runs south west direction to the beachside suburb of Glenelg.

In the past there were many other tram lines in Adelaide, but that is a story for another time!

Adelaide Metro spent a considerable amount of money renovating the tram back to it's original livery and look back in 1929 for these heritage runs. I have to say the tram looked fantastic, and the train driver was dressed in period clothing for the runs too!

I decided to take the tram from the Entertainment Centre, and while I was waiting, one of the normal Adelaide Trams, a Flexity Tram was leaving the Entertainment Centre tram stop on it's way to the city and Glenelg beyond.

Then a few minutes later the renovated H-series tram number 351 arrived to much photographing from the many rail fans present!

 Next we see the tram navigating the crossover just before arriving at the station.

 The train driver was in full period uniform too, and the tram just looked great! Well done to the people doing the renovations!

Next of course came the mad scramble to pay our gold coin donation to get a heritage ticket (from that 1929 era) and information booklet. My booklet and ticket is shown below:

And some information about the tram is included in the booklet. Adelaide Metro wanted to get opinion on whether the Heritage tram should become a regular fixture in Adelaide for tourists on the weekend. Of course I said yes!

Once onboard, we began the trek down to Glenelg. The seats are very comfortable, much better than the Flexity tram, and the lack of air conditioning was not an issue since the number of people onboard ensured it was quite warm all the way down.

Below we are crossing from the southern section of the city centre area into the southern suburbs:

Of course, you could adjust the windows up or down by adjusting the belt straps to lower/raise the window as shown below - very manual but works well:

Once we arrived in Glenelg, a crowd of people swarmed to get on the next run:

Now full and ready to depart back to the Entertainment Centre:

Of course the tram is not the only attraction in Glenelg, there is a rather nice beach, jetty and entertainment district to enjoy, which buzzes on friday and saturday nights. The Glenelg tram stop is just beyond the beginning of the Jetty:

I then walked back up to the Brighton Rd tram stop (doing some window shopping) before getting a normal Flexity tram back:

As a bonus, I saw a Flexity tram doing a Test Run, presumably new driver training. The Glengowrie Tram Depot (where the tram are kept when not in use) is not far from this stop location:

It was a great day out and I really enjoyed riding the Adelaide Heritage Tram!