Museum takes possession of old new trams

TWO W-class trams have arrived in the city and been handed over to the Ballarat Tramway Museum.

A W-5 from the 1930s, and W-7 built in the 1950s, were lifted off trucks and moved into the Museum’s Bungaree workshop on Friday morning.

The trams were donated by the State government as part of a program to giveaway some of the over 100 in storage at Newport.

“We had some particularly stringent conditions on what we wanted,” said Peter Waugh, marketing manager at the Museum.

“We wanted a tram that was in working condition that we could put into service pretty quickly and VicTrack were able to accommodate that request.”

The two new old trams will join three others in the preservation groups W-class fleet.

The W-7 will be restored and added to the Museum’s rolling stock while there are a few different options for the W-5 model.

I could be restored as well, kept in current condition and used as a film set or saved for spare parts to keep the rest of the Tramway Museum’s W-class models on the tracks.

“We’ve been given two trams, one in operating condition, one in not so good condition, which we’ll have to evaluate to see if we can get it working again” Mr Waugh said.

Mr Waugh said the addition of the W-7 will especially help take the load off the Museum’s existing rolling stock.

“We are running over 100-year-old trams and there is a fair amount of wear and tear on those. So to get some younger trams it means we can take some of the pressure off our heritage fleet and not have to run them onto the ground,” he said.

State members of parliament, Juliana Addison and Michaela Settle, formally handed over the trams to the Museum.

“Today is a really great day for the Ballarat Tramway Museum,” Ms Addison said. “These are going to be really great assets for the Ballarat community.”

Member for Buninyong, Ms Settle, spoke about the importance of the Tramway Museum to the city.

“This tram museum has been at the heart of all our lives in Ballarat,” she said. “I’ve certainly ridden the trams with my kids and it’s just fantastic to see that the government is supporting that and brining in new trams.”