G'day all, on the Victorian Labour Day long weekend Ballarat holds the
Begonia Festival in the Botanical Gardens and the Ballarat Tramway Museum
runs an intensive service with the financial assistance and support of the
Council. Travel is free but tickets are issued. This year we carried over
8000 happy passengers again and depending on the numbers we run between two
and five cars between 0900 and 1730 hours and all cars carry conductors.
The W3 and W4 are the backbone of the service and are in traffic all day
and are supplemented by two or three single truckers, mostly two for much
of the day. The Ws are used because of their wide doorways, they can carry
multiple prams, depending on the size of the prams of course. The Ballarat
bogie cars both have narrow doors and there are some very big prams around
these days. I worked all three days and was pretty weary by late Monday,
both motor traffic and pedestrian movements are chaotic and we are
constantly moving except on Monday while the Parade is on.

Some photos attached.

www.tdu.to/ReadytoRun11032017PBruce.jpg

www.tdu.to/FirstTrip11032017PBruce.jpg

www.tdu.to/Trammies11032017PBruce.jpg

www.tdu.to/Parade13032017PBruce

www.tdu.to/Crowd13032017PBruce.jpg

www.tdu.to/AEC13032017PBruce.jpg

www.tdu.to/AftertheParade13032017PBruce.jpg

Much of the time we were just too busy to get photos but I'm sure plenty of
photos were taken by others. The tramway has a house at Bungaree just out
of Ballarat so a few of us were able to stay there, have a meal, a beer or
two and tell a few lies after each busy day. A tiring weekend but a lot of
fun.

Regards to all TDUs,

Peter Bruce.