Melbourne tram from 1940s now stationed at Howlong's 1/2 Acre Cafe

Owners of the town's 1/2 Acre Cafe, Tracey Dutton and Dale Booth, recently welcomed the light rail vehicle to their Hawkins Street premises and have plans to convert it into a flower and gift shop, with additional seating for the eatery.

The W Class tram has been on site for two weeks and turned plenty of heads when it arrived.

"It needed two cranes in Melbourne and two cranes up here to get it on and off the truck. It stopped the whole town when it was coming in," Ms Dutton said.

"Everyone loves it. It's the best thing that's happened to Howlong for a while."

Ms Dutton said they applied to buy a tram four years ago and missed out, but were first in line for when more became available.

VicTrack sets the price for private buyers and businesses at $1000, plus the cost of transport and relocation.

After five-and-a-half years in the cafe, Ms Dutton and Mr Booth have placed it on the market and will focus on the tram full-time once they find a buyer.

"We were initially going to have it as more seating, but we've changed a little bit and we're going to turn it into a flower and gift shop, with some extra seating for the cafe," she said.

"My daughter is a florist and works in the cafe."

Mr Booth said the tram first hit the tracks in 1946 and travelled on the Carnegie line.

"They started getting rid of them in 1985," he said.

"There's not much steel in it, just a sheet and a little bit of chassis. The wheels actually weighed as much as the whole tram."

Mr Booth will gradually restore the tram and vowed to keep its original green and yellow colours.

"It still needs a bit of work on it. I'm just putting a new floor in down one end," he said.

"We want to keep the original colours. There's no regulations, but we'll give it a bit of a clean up.

Much to his surprise, when moving some of the interior panels, Mr Booth found several old cigarette packets, that had fallen inside the walls after being placed on windowsills by passengers.

Other distinctive features of the tram include advertising for Melbourne's 1996 Olympic Games bid on the front and ticket prices valid to March 10, 1991, inside.

Full fare prices for Zone 1 were $1.80 and 90 cents for concession.

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