Rolling Stock

The M&MTB inherited a fleet of 500 cable cars and 500 dummies all of which were standard in design.

However this was not the case with the rolling stock of the various electric tramways. Classes ‘A' to ‘V' of the Board's alphabetical tram classification were taken up with widely differing vehicles from the five municipal trusts plus the North Melbourne Electric Tramway & Lighting Co Ltd.

So the Board decided to standardise with a newly designed tram which would become a Melbourne icon. It was the much loved W-class.

The first ‘W’ was built in 1923 and variations of this class provided Melbourne with its distinctively styled trams right through to the mid-70s when the orange Z-class was introduced in 1975.

At first the Board adopted a chocolate and cream livery for its vehicles, similar to the Prahran & Malvern Tramways Trust. However when the St Kilda Road line was electrified the trams were painted green and cream to blend with the trees lining the route. Gradually, this livery was extended to the entire fleet.

In 1983 the new ‘A' class tram was designed with significant input from customers and employees. Supplementing the Zclass trams, 70 A-class vehicles were built by Comeng between 1984 and 1987. But tram technology was quickly changing and in 1984 Melbourne’s longest trams were brought into service. Around 132 air-conditioned B-class articulated trams (or light rail vehicles) were manufactured between 1984 and 1988 to operate on high-capacity routes.