Tom (Thomas) Wilson was born in Adelaide in 1947 in a private hospital in Malvern adjacent to the Kingswood tramline. He attended St Joseph's School, Kingswood, first catching the old 'maximum traction bogie' trams from Malvern to school, then Winders and Wadeson's and later the Westbourne Park Bus Company's buses along Cross Road from Clarence Park. He then attended Blackfriars Priory School at Prospect, catching Cole's Winston Avenue bus into the city and then the Drop Centre Prospect trams and later the Municipal Tramways Trust's three-door diesel Blair Athol buses. These all had an influence on his interest in public transport.
He has a Bachelor of Town and Regional Planning (Melbourne), an Assoc. Diploma Town Planning, and Grad. Dip. Business Admin (South Australian Institute of Technology). He is a Retired Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Transport, and retired member of the Planning Institute of Australia.
Tom lives in Adelaide and is married to Chris. Together they have three children and two grandchildren.
Dr John Radcliffe, AM, was born in 1938 and grew up in Fullarton, South Australia, initially attending Highgate Public School, clutching two pennies for his tram fare there and back and a book to record the numbers of the trams in which he travelled. A 'Bib and Bub' tram set often came at a propitious time and John caught it whenever he could. Later, he transferred to St Peters College, Hackney, where he initially arrived by tram, then later by bicycle past Hackney Depot, followed by two years at the North Terrace campus of the University of Adelaide, providing a fine view of the change-over period from trams to buses at the depot.
Stepping out from a second-year botany class, he formed half of a two person delegation to the General Manager of the Municipal Tramways Trust to ask for some trams for a museum (now the Australian Electric Transport Museum (SA) Incorporated - AETM), and to their pleasant surprise, the answer was yes. Subsequent years were spent completing a Bachelor of Agricultural Science degree with Honours. After helping secure the site for the Tramway Museum at St Kilda and moving the first trams there, John received a Fellowship at Oregon State University to complete a PhD.
From 1967 to 1982, John was President of the AETM, then becoming a founding Trustee of the History Trust of South Australia and its Chairman from 1987 to 1990. In more recent years he has been a State Government appointed representative on the Board of the National Rail Museum.
John has maintained a commitment to the St Kilda Tramway Museum and his life-long interest in Adelaide's tramways.
Christopher Steele was born in 1937, attended St Peters College at Hackney, South Australia, and from an early age was interested in trams and trolley buses, the latter because he grew up near the Tusmore trolleybus route in Adelaide.
From 1955, he studied at the then South Australian Institute of Technology and became a survey draftsman for the South Australian Engineering and Water Supply Department.
During an extended overseas trip in the 1960s he was able to work on the Bradford trolleybus system in England both as a conductor and driver, and later worked on the laying of new railways in Botswana. Using his experience as a surveyor, he assisted the City of Salisbury in laying of the track subsequently used by the Tramway Museum at St Kilda in South Australia.
Christopher was heavily involved with the Tramway Museum from its inception in 1957, being one the foundation members and Trustees. Christopher was also the Secretary of the Australian Electric Traction Association (SA Division) in its early years, advocating the retention of the trams in Adelaide.
Christopher passed away in 2015.