Tram systems in Sydney
Sydney, which is located on the east coast of Australia, is the state capital of New South Wales and the most populous city in Australia with a population of just over 5.3 million.
Sydney Kingsford-Smith Airport is the busiest airport in Australia, serving nearly 40 million passengers a year with routes to 23 domestic and 46 international locations. A second airport Bankstown Airport, serves general aviation and some cargo flights.
Sydney has an extensive network of suburban rail services running over 9 lines, with the main rail hub being Sydney Central Station, which also serves a network of interurban trains to destinations throughout New South Wales and long distance trains to destinations such as Adelaide, Brisbane, Melbourne and Perth.
Aditional local public transport is provided by the Sydney Metro, which is a fully automated system that opened in May 2019 with one line. There is also an extensive network of bus routes operated throughout the city and suburbs by a number of different operators under contract, as well as a network of ferries operating within Sydney harbour and Parramatta River. Finally, there is the tram network that is detailed below.
Sydney's first tram network operated between 1861 and 1961. The city had no light rail/tram system from 1961 until the opening of the Inner West Light Rail in 1997. The Inner West Light Rail, which is also known as the Dulwich Hill Line initially operated between Central station and Wentworth Park, but was extended to Lilyfield in 2000 and then Dulwich Hill in 2014. A second line, the CBD and South East Light Rail is currently expected to partially open in December 2019, with the remainder opening in March 2020. Plans for the Parramatta Light Rail have also been announced, which is due to open in 2023. Longer term plans also discuss the addition of further lines and extensions to the existing lines, but these are not expected until the late 2020s.
Sydney currently has 2 tram lines, details of which can be found on the Lines tab
Sydney's first tram line was built in 1861 and was a horse-drawn line running along Pitt Street from the old Sydney railway station to Circular Quay. This was followed in 1879 by a steam tramway that was introduced for the International Exhibition held at the time.
Electrification started in 1898 and the system was fully converted by 1910, with the exception of a line in Parramatta which remained steam operated until 1943.
The Sydney tram system reached its peak in the 1930s and was the largest in Australia and the second largest in the Commonwealth of Nations with around 181 miles of lines.
Sydney currently has 2 tram lines, which are listed below. To see more information about a particular line, click on the link in the table below (where applicable).
| Line | Description |
|---|---|
| L1 | Line 1 Dulwich Hill Line runs between Central Station and Dulwich Hill. |
| L2 | The CBD and South East Light Rail is a future line that will run from Circular Quay to Kingsford and Randwick. |