Re: TRAMWAY MUSEUM GAINS SUPPORT

street scenes with W's! With modern trams you may as well be any city
operating LRV's. Is this false advertising? Is Melbourne becoming an
anonymous city with no unique character?

Apart from the restaurant cars, W trams have not featured in major
point of sale, TV or cinema advertising for Victorian tourism in
Australia for quite a while. Melbourne has been assiduously expanding
its base of tourist "icons" over the past few decades and now has a
wide range that are used in advertising the city, with the trams now
playing relatively minor role.

So the new Nova100 radio station website (www.nova100.com.au) doesn't
actually have that picture of a W class tram in the banner... (on all of
their pages I might point out).
Nor the many postcards which proliferate, nor the touristy shops with models
of trams in the window - they surely aren't actually poor imitations of W
class trams after all, it must just be my eyesite.

Sorry Bill, but as a resident here, I can assure you that although there are
many Melbourne icons promoted as you say, one of the major ones is still the
W class trams. Many government departments (not just tourism) use the tram
as an icon of Melbourne still - you only have to visit the Victorian
Government website (www.vic.gov.au) and one of the key visual items used in
the banner is a W class tram.

It would be like saying that Sydney has a whole multitude of icons they
promote, but in reality the two they push as the definitive image of Sydney
are the Bridge and the Opera House! The others tend to be an adjunct still.
Or that Phillip Island has a range of tourist icons they promote - the
reality is the penguins are still a key tourist pulling item and used as
such. The Koala sanctuary, Seal Rocks, etc probably aren't responsible for
the 40 or so bus loads of tourists travelling down the South Gippsland
highway every night.

Unfortunately Bill, however much you argue, although people would rather
travel in an air conditioned B on a stnking hot summer day, there is a high
'brand recognition' of the W class being the 'Melbourne Tram'. And if you
were to get rid of them in favour of modern cars, the people of Melbourne
would kick up a stink. There was an interesting article a friend cut out for
me from the Herald Sun a few years ago where Jeff was asked about getting
rid of the Melbourne trams which in part explains the dilemma. If anyone is
interested and I get time in the next week or so, I can scan it and upload it.

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Professionals built the Titanic.


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