The colours of Sydney Trams

The advertising is generally applied as coloured plastic films stuck to the original paintwork, to enable easy removal. While the first few advertising makeovers left the front and the road numbers visible, later versions cover the entire vehicle, including the road numbers and the ends. The trams so treated are only identified by a single digit displayed in the lower left corner of the windscreen. If you are standing next to a tram, the orginal road numbers are often visible as raised bumps in the coloured plastic film that make up the advertising display as can be seen in this close shot of the front of 2104 where not only is the orginal road number showing, but also the Adtranz name and badge next to the marker light.

  During late August 2001, 2105 was seen in traffic in it's orginal colours, Thomas the Tank Engine being removed but Johny Walker not yet applied. This is probably due to the Thomas livery being school holiday children's attraction, not an advertising livery as such. I assume Connex was paying Brit Alcroft to use the Thomas name, where as normally advertisers pay Connex :-) The Thomas theme was repeated for June 2002, with the Thomas tram running special pre-booked trips. They apparently will run Thomas again next year.
  September 2002 saw a new phase in the style of the advertising, with 2101 going back to its orginal two blues but with 3 advertising panels down each side instead of a total conversion. The HSBC advertising first applied was replaced by Gillette by the end of November 2002. These smaller panels will probably allow rapid change of advertiser.

Road Number	Original	Advertising
2101		Holden (GM) Olympic Team Applied 9/1998	Renault Cars Applied 03/2001	HBSC home loans Early 09/2002	Gillette Crystal Venus 11/2002
2102		Cadbury Chocolate 1999	Cadbury Chocolate MkII Choose Happyness Choose Cadbury Early August 2001	Footloose Musical Late 08/2002	Western Union Money Transfer 01/2003
2103		Yellow Pages Applied late 1999	Mobil Synergy Early April 2001	11/2002
2104		Festival of Sydney Early 1998	Happy 10th Darling Harbour Mid 1998	Radio 2UE Mid 1999	Apple Computer Imac Feb/Mar 2000 The Apple Cart
		Apple Computer Imac MkII July(?) 2000 The Apple Cart	Connex World Leaders in passenger Transport July 2001	Sussan 11/2002
2105		Hienz Ketchup Late 1999	Thomas the Tank Engine Early June to late August 2001	Johny Walker Keep Walking Early September 2001	Thomas the Tank Engine 07/06/2002
		Mamma Mia! 26/07/2002	Bombardier Transportation Quiet Safe Clean Quick 29/11/2002
2106		Intel Pentium III Middle 1999	MasterCard Late 1999	MasterCard MkII Everyday rewards for everybody July 2001	Sydney's Paddy's Markets You haven't been the Markets 'till you've been to Paddy's 10/06/2002
2107		Orange Communications Late 1999	Russell Athletic February 2000	Whirlpool Ovens with perfect control July 2001	The New Imac Early 2002
		Sydney Kings Go off with the Sydney Kings 11/2002

Service and maintence

134s Rail Scubber	Owned by the Sydney Tram Museum	This 100 year old service tram was hired by the construction contractors to grind the rails smooth. It was fitted with an East German bow pantograph and additional starting resistors. (It is a 600v tram).
Unimog road/rail recovery unit		This shows the unimog towing brand new 2103 towards the depot shortly after it was unloaded in Hay St. At this stage neither the overhead power system or the tram had been commissioned.