During the 1880s, the Ballarat City Council began to take a serious interest in the provision of public transport. It has always been left to the private operators of horse-cabs to meet this need but the Council wished to keep Ballarat at the forefront of civic advancements. At the time electric tramways were in their infancy and cable trams although preferred were very expensive.

The Council granted a concession to an Adelaide company for the construction and operation of a network of horse-trams but the financial success was never hoped for. Eventually the local electricity supplier and the horse-tram company were purchased by the Electric Supply Company of Victorian which replaced the horse-trams with electric trams and upgraded Ballarat's electricity supply. In 1934 the creation of the SECV saw both enterprises being acquired by which time the tramway system was in a poor condition. The SECV subsequently rehabilitated the network but mounting losses brought its closure in September 1971.

The main focus of the DVD is the story of the Ballarat trams but also the history of gold mining, the Botanic Gardens and Lake Wendouree and the city's contribution to the 1956 Olympic Games.