After a VERY protracted delivery run from Milan via Bendigo and Melbourne, ATM Ventotto 1692 finally arrived at it’s new home of Loftus on the 25th of July 2015.
1692 arrived in Australia in 2001 and was sent straight to Bendigo for completion of the work to make it a ‘double ended’ vehicle. Before it could be delivered to Sydney, it was ‘borrowed’ for the Melbourne Moomba festival and the tram was dispatched to Melbourne. After being used a few times it ‘retired’ to the Hawthorn depot museum where it sat on static display till 2015. (See Trolley Wire, May 2002 for more details on the car’s restoration.)
These cars are commonly called (in English anyway) ‘Peter Witt’ cars, as when they were built in 1928/29 they were constructed to the passenger flow principals of American street car designer Peter Witt. However his ideas didn’t work in Milan and the cars were soon altered.
The locals appear to call them ‘Model 28s'(Ventotto) or ‘Class 1500s’.
This video shows aspects of the unloading process. But be warned, it’s quite long.
It will be some time before this tram is available for traffic. It will be refitted with trolley poles for operation at Loftus, but the tram hasn’t had a pole since some time in the 70s, and even then, being single ended, it only had one pole. The original pole support beams have long been removed.
