29 September 223

Very sad and annoyed to read that Yarra Trams is going to halve the City Circle W Class Tram service, by running them only one way, every 12 minutes. They’ve never wanted to run them, nor did the PTV before them – they just want to run modern vehicles – even though they’re definitely historic, the circle is popular, and the 20 or so Ws left running have been both restored and upgraded to modern safety standards at something like $8mill each. But with little promotion, they’ve been getting increasingly forgotten. When I started at the National Trust in the early 90s there were 300 of them, as much a part of Melbourne as the MCG and the tree lined boulevards they ran along. Built from the 20s through to the 50s they feature traditional cream and green painted wood exteriors, and interiors with polished timber, green leather seats and brass and chrome metalwork (now largely high vis yellow). It’s been a long slow death, with Yarra Trams in control and no organised support to call them out. Sigh. We produced a few plans of routes they could maybe have done on weekends or at hourly intervals, a proper tourist experience, as in the maps attached, to no avail. All photos the internet.

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