A steam train that started carrying passengers across Tasmania in the 1950s has returned to the tracks after more than four years in mothballs. The Tasmanian Transport Museum hopes the M-5 train will soon have its heritage rides roll further into Hobart’s northern suburbs.
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00:00It's a sound that hasn't been heard around here for a while, but after 5,000 hours of
00:09volunteer labour to restore this M5 train, it's finally back on the tracks.
00:15It's very important that these kinds of heritage transport machines are kept in a workable
00:22condition so that the Tasmanian community can enjoy them for many years to come.
00:27Work was done to the engine, boiler, tyres, wheel bearings, bogies and the pony truck.
00:33This has been able to be undertaken because of a grant of $100,000 under the Community
00:40Development Grant, with the assistance, I might add, of Andrew Wilkie.
00:46The M5 was one of 10 M-Class trains that first entered service in 1952.
00:52It took its last commercial passenger run in the early 1970s, and has been with the
00:57Tasmanian Transport Museum since 1976.
01:01Museum visitors will be able to take heritage rides on the M5 once it's had its final weight
01:07check.
01:08People can literally live history by coming along and going for a ride behind one of our
01:13trains.
01:14The heritage rides are currently confined to Chiklunorki, but will be extended to Burydale
01:19later this year, then Chigwell, and eventually, the museum hopes, to Granton.