There is a certain romance about the end of an era. The last Royal Easter Show at the Moore Park showgrounds; the last circuit of Sydney's widely-derided monorail; the last day of school.
The last bus scheduled to rumble down George Street to Town Hall before construction begins on the light rail - the N50 Night Ride from Liverpool Station - was not exactly romantic but it was a moment in Sydney's history.
The Herald was bright-eyed and on board shortly after 5.52 am on Sunday when the bus left Railway Square for the last leg of its journey. We shared this historic conveyance with three commuters, including Patricia Morelli, who was on her way to work at Circular Quay.
"The bus that I usually get isn't going to go all the way to Circular Quay anymore, so I'm going to have to walk a bit more. I've been going this way now for two years and every day on this bus," she said.
"I think I'll probably miss a little bit of George Street, looking around, especially in the middle of the day. There's so many people around. I guess it's part of progress and it's for the better. Everyone gets used to it after a while."
Ms Morelli was unaware she and her fellow travellers were bearing witness to the last George Street bus trip: "That I didn't know, I thought [the last bus] was a little bit later. It's good to know I'm on the very last bus."
Bus driver Raymond Gudgeon, 42, was similarly surprised to learn he was at the helm of no ordinary omnibus.
"It's alright to be a part of history, [it's a] bit of a buzz," he said. "I like change. It's good to see the old trams back again."
David Frew, 72, was at the bus stop when the Herald alighted from the N50. He was a teenager working in the old ANZ Bank building in Martin Place when Sydney tore up its tram network in 1961.
"I guess I didn't think a lot about it [at the time]. Most of my mates were getting a car," he said. "But I know when I went to Europe when I was 22 there were trams running all over different cities. It [light rail] is a real asset on the Gold Coast."
He said the new plan for light rail down George Street was "terrific" and "it's going to be worth it".
Transport for NSW confirmed ahead of time that the N50 was the last bus scheduled to travel along George Street to the city on Sunday. But as Shakespeare nearly said, the course of commuter travels never did run smooth: the N70 from Penrith pulled into Town Hall minutes after the N50 roared off.
