Mumbai: BEST set to flaunt its good old tram

The refurbished tram car sits on a specially constructed platform at Bhatia Baug near CSMT

An old Kolkata tram car revived as per the Bombay Tramway Company's original drawings and livery is set to be unveiled in the city soon. The coach with the BEST logo is standing at Bhatia Baug opposite CSMT.

The inside of the tram matches with the original specifications

Manmohan Singh, a former BEST chief between November 1990 and February 1994 and who was instrumental in getting the tram car to Mumbai, recalled nostalgically, "After taking over as GM of BEST, when I went to see the museum and asked the people there where the wonderful heritage of the past era known as the tram was, they said there wasn't any left. That is when I noted down, more by hook than by crook, I must procure one tram."

Singh said officials in Kolkata readily agreed to his request. "They gave a tram to BEST on a permanent loan of R1. The transportation cost of it to Mumbai was about Rs 93,000," he said. Since then, the coach had been rusting at Anik bus depot. The bus undertaking recently restored it with the help of museum curator Yatin Pimpale at a workshop in Mahape.

"The tram car has been meticulously rebuilt to look similar as the original ones by studying its old drawings. The idea is to recreate the tramway display to evoke nostalgia," Pimpale said. mid-day was first to report the arrival of the tram in south Mumbai in its August 7 edition of 2019.

A host of reasons, including Lok Sabha and assembly polls and the COVID pandemic, delayed the display of the tram car, which currently sits on a specially constructed platform inside Bhatia Baug near CSMT, covered with blue sheets.

Documentary on trams
Two students of Deviprasad Goenka College of Management and Media Studies, Malad West, have made a documentary on the history of tramways in Mumbai, to be inaugurated by former BEST general manager Manmohan Singh. The documentary by Aditya Ajit Sawant and Rugwed Krupa Kulkarni captures the journey of Bombay Tramway Company Ltd from 1874, when it had horse-drawn cars.