Tram Does Pies
Newcastle Herald
Tuesday June 16, 1998
AN old Sydney tram that sat rotting in a paddock at Rutherford for the past 40 years is the focus of a new business venture in Hunter St, Newcastle.
Harry's on Hunter is a version of the world famous Harry's Cafe de Wheels pie 'n' peas caravan cafe that has operated near the Woolloomooloo naval dockyard in Sydney since 1938.
The R Class tram, built in 1938 and designed to have two women conductors during the war, ran on the Coogee/Bondi to Sydney run until it was de-commissioned in 1957.
It was the last tram to make the run.
Up until November, last year, the tram sat in long grass in a paddock at Rutherford and was decaying from the weather.
For the past 18 months the owner of Harry's Cafe de Wheels, Mr Michael Hannah, had looked at the possibility of repeating his Sydney venture in either Canberra, Wollongong or Newcastle.
`It actually was the former Novocastrians living in Sydney, and eating our pies, who convinced me to come to Newcastle,' Mr Hannah said.
`I visited Newcastle on quite a few weekends looking at various sites, but when I saw Honeysuckle I had a vibe that this was a good location.
`During my visits to Newcastle I remembered seeing a couple of old trams on the wharves and thought they would look good done up.
`When I finally decided to come to Newcastle, I found they had gone.'
Mr Hannah contacted the Sydney Tramways Museum and was told about tram No 1892 sitting in a paddock at Rutherford.
`I was pretty disappointed when I first saw it. Saving the body was the main priority, but we managed to get it back to Loftus for restoration,' Mr Hannah said.
The restoration work, including the installation of a kitchen, took 11 weeks and $50,000.
The 17m-long and 3m-wide pie tram, now known as Harry's on Hunter, is located in Hunter St West, opposite Churchill's.
It opens from 8am to late on Monday to Friday and from 9am to late at weekends.
Mr Hannah, who also owns a bakery in Sydney, supplies his two sites with daily-baked pies. The pie tram offers 40 combinations of pie, peas, gravy and hot dogs.
Four local people have been employed to work in the pie tram.
Prior to buying Harry's Cafe de Wheels in 1988 (only the third owner since 1938), Mr Hannah was the manager of Australian entertainer, Rodney Rude.
`During those three years, we travelled all over Australia and we tried the pies everywhere we stopped, trying to compare them with Harry's,' Mr Hannah said.
`Nothing ever came close. Nothing has changed.'
© 1998 Newcastle Herald