Hi, all!
It’s a bit hard to tell from the enlarged photo of 453, but I reckon 453 (along with 450, 451 and 452) still had the single spring Metro Vickers trolley bases that I remember seeing around that time.
Cheers!
Len

From: 'Roderick Smith' via TramsDownUnder
Sent: Friday, February 15, 2019 3:20 PM
To: Tdu Transportdownunder ;tramsdownunder@...
Subject: [TramsDownUnder] W2.453 in 1956

5611xx St Kilda Rd (Melbourne, Vic.): Olympic Games decorations, W2.453 outbound to St Kilda Beach on route 15. (Neil Smith, Roderick Smith collection).
Which corner in St Kilda Rd? Which statue? Was that one relocated, or has it been placed in storage during railway-tunnel construction?
What was route 15 in that era?
The tram would have had a trolley wheel, not a skid, but that is camouflaged by the background.

Roderick