Your child is learning about “transport then and now” and has questions. How did people get around before cars? What made a steam train go? What pulled Melbourne’s first trams? Here’s a guide to transport then and now for kids: walking and old paths, horses and coaches, paddle steamers, steam trains and Melbourne’s trams, what children learn at school, and easy activities for home.
How did people travel long ago?
On foot, for a very long time. When gold seekers walked inland in the 1850s, State Library Victoria notes, “The paths they took were often the same ones that Indigenous Victorians had taken for millennia and it was only with Indigenous help that some were able to make it to their destinations.” Aboriginal guides often showed the easiest routes, “often along traditional pathways”.
Walking was hard going. Many new arrivals “were unprepared for the physical exertion of walking for days at a time”, and the colony’s rough roads were constantly criticised.
Horses, bullock drays and coaches
People rode horses, and goods went by bullock dray. Then, in 1854, Cobb & Co arrived. State Library Victoria says “They were the first to bring reliable coaches that ran to schedule.” Their coaches ran between Melbourne, Castlemaine, Bendigo and Ballarat, and “A trip of 100 kilometres could now be made in one long day”. Depending on the coach and the route, teams ranged from two to eight horses.
Coaches carried people and letters from town to town for years, but as the same source puts it, “Stagecoaches were succeeded by trains.”
When did the first steam train run in Australia?
In 1854, in Melbourne. The Melbourne and Hobson’s Bay Railway Company built a line from Flinders Street to Sandridge (now Port Melbourne), linking the town with the port. The Victorian Heritage Database calls it “the first passenger railway line in Australia”.
KidStudy’s lesson explains it simply: steam trains burnt coal to boil water, and the steam pushed the wheels round and puffed out in clouds. There was a lot of smoke. When the grand Flinders Street Station was finished in 1910, its subways were built “to protect passengers changing platforms from the smoke and steam of steam trains”.
Steam didn’t last forever on city lines. Melbourne’s whole suburban railway system was electrified between 1918 and 1923. You can still ride a steam train, though: Puffing Billy, in the Dandenong Ranges, was built in 1900 and still runs on its original mountain track between Belgrave and Gembrook.
What were paddle steamers?
Paddle steamers were boats pushed along by big paddle wheels, and they carried goods along the Murray River. Echuca, on the Murray, became a busy river port. Its wharf was built between 1864 and 1867, with a rail link to Melbourne, and an Australian Government heritage assessment notes that “At its peak in the early 1880s, over 200 vessels used the wharf each week”. River trade then faded as railways spread. Today, paddle steamers still leave Echuca Wharf, now carrying visitors.
How did Melbourne’s trams change?
Melbourne’s trams have come in three kinds:
- Horse trams. The first line carried passengers from Fairfield Railway Station to Thornbury. Yarra Trams says horse tramways “were not widely adopted and ran only for short distances.”
- Cable trams. The first cable tram ran on 11 November 1885, from Spencer Street to Richmond. Large steam engines in engine houses kept a steel cable moving in a tunnel under the road, and the open “dummy” at the front had a grip that held on to the moving cable or let it go. By 1891 Melbourne had 71 km of double-track cable tramway.
- Electric trams. The first ran on 14 October 1889 between Box Hill and Doncaster, but closed less than seven years later. Electric trams came back in 1906 and slowly took over, and the last cable tram ran to Northcote on 26 October 1940.
Today, according to the Victorian Government, Melbourne has “the world’s largest tram network, which manages 500 trams, 1,600 tram stops, 24 routes and more than 250 kilometres of double track.”
| When | What happened |
|---|---|
| For millennia | Aboriginal people travel Country on foot along traditional paths |
| 1854 | Cobb & Co coaches arrive; Australia’s first passenger railway opens in Melbourne |
| 1864–1867 | Echuca Wharf is built for Murray River paddle steamers |
| 1885 | Melbourne’s first cable tram |
| 1889 | Melbourne’s first electric tram |
| 1918–1923 | Melbourne’s suburban trains switch from steam to electric |
| 1940 | The last cable tram runs |
What children learn about transport at school
- In Victoria, History for Foundation to Level 2 includes “the consequences of changing technologies on people’s lives at home, and the ways they worked, travelled and communicated in the past” (VC2HH2K06), with “changes to land, air and sea transport” as an example. Children also learn to “sequence events chronologically” (VC2HH2S02) and to “identify examples of continuity and change by comparing the past and present” (VC2HH2S05).
- In the Australian Curriculum (AC9), it’s Year 2 HASS: “how technological developments changed people’s lives at home, and in the ways they worked, travelled and communicated” (AC9HS2K02). Suggested activities include questioning grandparents or familiar elders about the transport they used as children, and “identifying the technologies used by local First Nations Australians for aspects of daily life such as providing food, shelter and transportation”.
KidStudy’s Year 1 History lesson Getting Around Then and Now covers horses and coaches, steam trains and Melbourne’s trams. Children sort ways of travelling into long ago and now, put them in order from oldest to newest, and pick out the ways we still travel in Melbourne today. Its 10-minute home activity, How we get around, asks your child to list the ways they travelled this week and compare them with how an older grown-up got to school.
Transport activities for kids at home
- Ask a grandparent. How did you get to school? Did you ever ride a horse, a tram or a steam train? Write or draw both answers side by side.
- Make a picture timeline. Draw walking, a horse and coach, a steam train, a tram, a car and a plane, then put them in order from oldest to newest.
- Old, new or both? Sort a pile of transport toys or pictures into three groups. Walking, bikes and boats often end up in “both”.
- Ride and wonder. On your next tram or train trip, look up at the overhead wires and talk about what makes it go now, and what pulled trams long ago.
- Visit the past. A ride on Puffing Billy, which calls itself Australia’s premier preserved steam railway, or on a paddle steamer at Echuca lets children see and hear old-style transport for themselves.
Transport changed school life too: see our guide to school in the olden days, and for the bigger picture, our history of Melbourne for kids.
Questions parents ask
How did people travel in the 1800s in Australia?
Mostly on foot or on horseback, with bullock drays for goods. Coaches carried passengers and mail between towns, paddle steamers worked the Murray River, and railways spread from 1854.
When was the first train in Australia?
Australia’s first passenger railway opened in Melbourne in 1854, running from Flinders Street to Sandridge, now Port Melbourne.
What pulled Melbourne’s first trams?
Horses pulled the first trams on a few short lines. Then came cable trams, from 1885, which gripped a moving cable under the road. Electric trams took over, and the last cable tram ran in 1940.
What is a paddle steamer?
A boat driven by large paddle wheels. Paddle steamers carried goods on the Murray River, and some still carry visitors from Echuca Wharf.
How do I teach transport then and now to my child?
Ask grandparents how they travelled, make a picture timeline, sort transport into old, new and both, and talk about what powers the trams and trains you ride.
Sources
- Transport (Golden Victoria), State Library Victoria (Ergo)
- Aborigines and the gold rush, State Library Victoria (Ergo)
- Sandridge Railway Line Bridge, Victorian Heritage Database, Heritage Council Victoria
- Flinders Street Railway Station Complex, Victorian Heritage Database, Heritage Council Victoria
- The history of the City of Melbourne (booklet), City of Melbourne
- About Puffing Billy, Puffing Billy Railway
- Echuca Wharf (heritage assessment), Australian Heritage Database, Australian Government
- Melbourne’s tram history, Yarra Trams
- Making the world’s biggest tram network even better, Premier of Victoria
- Victorian Curriculum F–10 Version 2.0: History, VCAA
- Australian Curriculum v9.0: HASS, Year 2, ACARA
