On 02/07/2020 17:18, 'Richard Youl' via TramsDownUnder wrote:
> It’s nice that people in the Met had a heart for older unusual trams and kept them tucked away here in there after they were really no longer required, which must have greatly facilitated many of them being available when museum groups developed to the point where they could accept these obsolete cars. I can’t imagine that happening much under private operators.

>

The private operators don't own the trams - they are a State asset under the control of VicTrack.

My experience (over the last 3 years) has been that VicTrack have been very supportive of heritage needs.

The process of re-purposing the 200+ stored W class trams included an offer to any tram museum in Australia to ask for what they wanted.

All requests were granted, but not all museums have been able to take what was on offer.

Some museums have asked for trams under the general public "Expression of Interest" process, and again (as far as I know) all have been offered trams.

There's no reason to think that won't happen as the Z3, A and B classes are taken out of service, but it will be  a real challenge to museums to be able to take what's on offer.

Mal Rowe - still involved in the process - recovering spare parts (see pic) for the future.