[Melb] Tram article, Saturday's Age

["Daniel Bowen" <dbowen@#DELETE#custard.net.au>]

There was a great nostalgic article by Peter McMillan about Melbourne's
trams in Saturday's Age (Extra, p5). Unfortunately it doesn't appear to be
on their web site, but here are some quotes that for me brought back
memories of riding the W's down Carlisle Street:

- (The trams) would emit strange, apparently spontaneous
digger-digger-digger noises.

- I would try to get a place at the front window of the tram, where I could
just see the hands of the driver moving the knobs and levers that made the
tram go.

- Occasionally (a conductor) would honour a child on the tram by handing
over a ticket butt: a little patch of cardboard from which all the tickets
had been removed, leaving the ticket ends stapled in a clump. These ticket
butts contained some magic - they had an aura of importance about them, and
a wonderful, flicky texture when you ran your thumb across them.



Daniel
--
Daniel Bowen, Melbourne, Australia
dbowen at custard dot net dot au
http://www.custard.net.au/bowen/daniel/