For over 25 years, as W class trams were withdrawn from service in Melbourne they were either loaned to museum and other groups or stored in various locations.

Most are now at Newport Railway Workshops.

This was the result of a promise in the mid 1990s by the then Minister of Transport (Alan Brown) that these heritage icons would be re-purposed, and not sold or simply scrapped.

Over the last 7 or 8 months I have been part of a group given the task of recommending appropriate strategies for re-purposing these trams to the current Minister of Transport (Jacinta Allen).

The Minister has accepted our recommendations and the policy and process will be released early next week.

There will be a news item on Channel 9 news about this on Sunday evening - you may even see me in front of a couple of old trams. You may also see well known TDUer Peter Bruce and others.

Mal Rowe - in the attached pic