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‘Mind the curve!’

Notices on Melbourne’s cable trams were full of common sense and almost always observed by all — at least to some degree. To today’s eyes they seem rather quaint, as we are accustomed to snappy graphics which are not always obvious to the general public, or to very terse, blunt warnings. Instead, notices were phrased with a sense of natural politeness:

PLEASE CLOSE UP AND MAKE ROOM FOR OTHERS

MAKE WAY FOR PASSENGERS GETTING IN OR OUT

LOOK BACK BEFORE GETTING OFF — AVOID DANGER FROM MOTOR VEHICLES

WAIT UNTIL THE CAR STOPS

NEVER GET ON OR OFF WHILE THE CAR IS IN MOTION

PASSENGERS MUST NOT STAND ON FRONT OR SIDE OF DUMMY

The last notice was only partially obeyed, as passengers commonly hung on to the sides when the tram was crowded or if the seats were wet. However, woe betide any passenger who attempted to stand at the front of the dummy, and obscure the gripman’s forward view. He would stop the car and refuse to proceed, even if a passenger seated at the front opened an umbrella to stop getting wet.

There was one regulation that was always honoured in the breach rather than the observance:

PASSENGERS MAY NOT TALK TO THE GRIPMAN

The gripman was surrounded by passengers, and it would have been a very rare individual who could have resisted speaking to the gripman, and getting a polite reply. Some gripman whistled, hummed or sang while they did their work.

But the gripmen were respected by all — they tended to be big men with powerful shoulders, due to the constant physical effort of pulling and releasing the grip and brake levers, which were operated without any form of power assistance.

There was one salutary warning that appeared on the platforms of the trailer car:

PASSENGERS HOLD ON WHILE ROUNDING CURVES

When a cable tram took a sharp curve at speed, particularly under momentum, it would have a curious bounding motion. This was a particular feature of the Melbourne system, which had more curves than any other cable tram system in the world. So if a standing passenger didn’t hang on, he could find himself spilled out onto the roadway.

This bounding around the curve is evident in film footage of the period.

The Company’s regulations covered this by requiring gripmen to give warning by calling in a loud voice, ‘Hold on while rounding the curve!’. The laconic nature of the Australian character rapidly reduced this to the succinct ‘Mind the curve!’.

This become such an icon associated with the cable trams that the constant ringing of the bells and the warning of ‘Mind the curve!’ is firmly fixed in the minds of those few remaining with first hand memories of Melbourne’s cable trams.

Bibliography

Keating, J (1970) Mind the Curve! Melbourne University Press
ARE Video (1988) Commuting by Cable

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