Despite the City of Ballarat regularly arguing the expense would be prohibitive, the population has a collective desire to see rolling stock in some form on the streets again, such is the allure of the memory of them.

It will be 50 years in September since the last tram - Number 40 - pulled up at the Sebastopol terminus outside the Royal Mail Hotel, discharging its passengers into the evening to be met by a cheering crowd.

A film, made by Jack Anderson on the last days of tram service in Ballarat, shows the No 40 and other trams as their days draw to an end. It's a view of a much different Ballarat, with fewer road restrictions and even fewer cars; the tram conductors in their dark coats and peaked caps, and children riding on the running boards.

Watch the video here.

The Ballarat Tramway Museum, says No 40 was built in 1913 by Duncan and Fraser for the Prahran and Malvern Tramways Trust and entered service on June 7,1913 as their number 35. It retained this number when classed "C" by the Melbourne and Metropolitan Tramways Board, and was sold to the State Electricity Commission of Victoria (SEC) and renumbered 40 in 1951.

In operation, Ballarat's tram services extended over 24 kilometres and had seven main routes, running in two directions from the Botanical Gardens and out to Mount Pleasant, Sebastopol, along Lydiard Street North and out along Victoria Street.

Many of the trams running over the existence of the Ballarat Tramways still survive today in various locations.

The service was shut in 1971 by the Bolte government with patronage declining and car use increasing.

Despite several fervent calls for its reinstatement over the decades, it seems unlikely to ever return.

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