India’s tramway turned 150. But it’s on its last legs.

Australian Roberto D’Andrea, a guest conductor on a streetcar in Kolkata, India, wore the green uniform of a Melbourne “connie,” or tram conductor, as he punched tickets and called out the name of each stop.

D’Andrea, a retired tram conductor, was part of the festivities last month for the tramway’s 150th anniversary, also marked by cake, music and a parade of gaily decorated old trams, led by a 100-year-old green wooden car.

D’Andrea’s love of trams has brought him back to the city again and again since he first visited 30 years ago. The “ding ding ding” noise the streetcar made, said D’Andrea, who belongs to the Calcutta Tram Users Association, reminded him of the trams in Melbourne.

Melbourne and Kolkata have two of the longest-running tramways in the world.

But Kolkata’s tram system is limping along. It’s down to just two lines, and despite a loyal band of supporters advocating for it, there is little political will, or room in the city’s crowded streets, to bring the streetcars back to their former glory days.

Snehasis Chakrabarty, the West Bengal state transport minister, kicking off the celebrations, said that the trams face a lot of practical problems: Roads aren’t getting any wider and the number of cars on the street keeps rising.

“We are not here to say goodbye to trams,” Chakrabarty said. “Although, it is not possible today to run[a] tram [on] every route in [the] Kolkata metropolitan city due to congestion.”

Kolkata has far less road space compared to other Indian cities like Mumbai. So, trams have to share the road with cars, trucks, rickshaws, buses, three-wheelers and millions of pedestrians.

Many old tram routes have also been taken over by buses and three-wheelers.

Ongoing construction of the underground metro railway system also disrupted old tram routes.

But the transport minister promised that trams will remain at least as a heritage ride for tourists.

Transport consultant Suvendu Seth, sitting in a bustling, new cafe in a tram depot, argued that trams should be for mass transport, not heritage.

“Why don’t we make those roads which are narrow for pedestrians and trams only? Why allow vehicles there?”

Many cities in Europe, Australia and the US got rid of streetcars during the automobile boom of the 1950s and ’60s, he said. Now, with a push toward sustainability and green transport, many cities are bringing streetcars back, often at great expense.

“And we had it all the time, and we are neglecting it,” Seth said. “That’s not a very nice thing. We should encourage it.”

Especially in a city where the air quality index is routinely over 200 during the winter months.

But there’s a misconception that trams “are from another century,” he said.

The double-bogeyed streetcars of Kolkata do feel old — they have not been updated in decades and rattle noisily down the middle of the street, sometimes losing the overhead electric connection.

But tram workers have not given up. During the anniversary event, a group of streetcar workers raised slogans demanding that more services be resumed.

One streetcar driver, Gopal Ram, reminisced about how his family had worked for the tramways for generations.

His great-grandfather, Antu Ram, worked on trams when it was still steam-powered. His grandfather, Mahavir Ram, and his father, Jagannath Ram, both spent their lives working on trams.

When Hindu-Muslim riots engulfed Kolkata in the 1940s, tram workers drove empty trams to restore confidence in a shattered city.

“My father, himself, helped save people from a mob,” Gopal Ram said.

Gopal Ram just retired after 39 years of service. He said that he sees no future in the trams of Kolkata. For Gopal Ram, it is the end of the line.