“Watch the tram car, please,” is a phrase that has become synonymous with the boardwalk here, and on June 27 the Floss Stengel, the voice of the tramcar, gave a live rendition before hoping on the debut ride of the first new tram in 44 years.

A crowd of onlookers and officials from the island were eager to join her for what Patrick Rosenello, director of the Wildwoods Boardwalk Special Improvement District (SID), called the first “free ride” down to Cresse Avenue.

“It will cost you $2 to come back,” he joked.

Commissioned from Rampage Trailer Co., the tram will still have the same nostalgic look but the frame will be cushioned with rubber, the tires will be changed from steel-belted to trailer tires and the foam density in the seats will be increased.

Of the eight tramcars, each with four passenger trailers, currently in use, five were built for the 1939 New York World's Fair and three were built in 1963. Those earliest trams, still in service today, were brought to Wildwood in 1949 by S.B. Ramagosa.

Bob Brown, of South Carolina-based Rampage Trailer Co., had to start from scratch, copying the design of the existing trams as he started work on the first new tram car built since 1963.

The five new passenger trailers were ordered by the SIDwhich owns and operates the cars. The total cost of the new trailers was approximately $85,000. Each new trailer costs approximately $18,00 to build and outfit.

The trams run at about five miles per hour for up to 12 hours at a time on the power of a single 2,000-pound electric battery. With one tramcar carrying about 40 people, an estimated 500,000 people ride the tramcar each year.