Sydney Tramway Museum

The Sydney Tramway Museum is an operating tramway museum, located in Loftus in the southern suburbs of Sydney, Australia. Sydney Tramway Museum is the trading name of the South Pacific Electric Railway (SPER).

Location
The museum was officially opened at its original site at the edge of the Royal National Park by NSW Deputy Premier Pat Hills in 1965. It relocated to a larger site across the Princes Hwy which opened on 19 March 1988. Prior to the opening of the new site the museum had operating tramways at both locations.

Operation
The museum has an extensive collection of trams from Sydney and from cities in Australia and around the world. There are two tram lines from the museum used to run tram rides for museum visitors. One line runs 1.5 km north almost to Sutherland railway station, paralleling a suburban highway in a way typical of Sydney's previous tram system. The second utilises a former railway branch off CityRail's Illawarra railway line to penetrate 2 km into the Royal National Park that flanks Sydney's southern boundary. A number of Sydney's suburban electric train services used to terminate at Royal National Park, but the line closed in 1991, and Waterfall is now the southern terminus for suburban electric train services on the Illawarra line. The Sydney Tramway museum is run entirely by volunteers and self funds its day to day activities, restorations and construction programs from gate takings and donations from the public.