MMTB W2 Class Tram No. 357

Every fleet needs its foundation stone, and at Haddon that role belongs to W2 357 — the first tram to run under power on the Association’s own tramway, in July 1990. Its Melbourne story starts on 30 January 1926, when it entered service as a W-class car, and it carries a distinction: it was the last tram built entirely at the MMTB’s Holden Street Tramway Workshops before construction moved wholly to Preston.

The W class was the newly formed Board’s answer to the chaos it inherited — dozens of small classes from the various trusts and companies that had run Melbourne’s trams before 1920. Two hundred cars of the standard design were built by four builders between 1923 and 1926. The design evolved quickly: the W1 variant tried a dropcentre laid out like a cable-tram dummy, and the improved semi-enclosed dropcentre of the W2 became the definitive form. 180 new W2s were built, and between 1928 and 1937 the whole W and W1 fleet was converted to match — 357 among them, rebuilt as a W2 in the early 1930s.

No. 357 ran in that form for nearly forty years until withdrawal in November 1968, after a recorded 2,160,827 miles. Stored at Hawthorn Depot, it was inspected and purchased by the Haddon group and delivered to the museum in April 1977.

The long-term intention recorded for 357 is an evocative one: restoration back to its original W-class configuration in chocolate brown and cream, representing the very beginning of the W-class story — a livery and layout that vanished from Melbourne’s streets in the 1930s. In the meantime the car is stored in operational condition as a W2.

Technical Details

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