'Nothing is impossible': The former refugee grandmother who drives a tram

Marline Abdul Ahad has achieved her dream job of driving a tram in Melbourne after first joining Yarra Trams as a cleaner.

Marline Abdul Ahad says she loves "serving people" in her capacity as one of 1500 drivers for Yarra Trams in Melbourne.

Key Points

• Iraqi refugee Marline Abdul Ahad joined Yarra Trams as a cleaner.
• After two years, she qualified to work as a tram driver.
• Now 12 years on the job, she says nothing is impossible.

A former refugee from Iraq, Marline Abdul Ahad, 62, now drives trams in Melbourne, the largest tram network in the world.

"I did not expect to drive a tram in Melbourne, but nothing is impossible for those who work hard," Ms Ahad said.

"I couldn't believe I could drive a tram back and forth and even have the skills to do it."

Yarra Trams operates almost 500 trams across 26 tram routes and a free City Circle tourist tram. The network takes in over 1,763 tram stops, with 250km (155.3 miles) of double track. The company employs 1500 drivers.

Originally from Iraq, Mrs Ahad and her family initially escaped to Jordan in 1994 then to New Zealand before being able to move to Australia a few years later in 2007.

Ms Ahad said she became fascinated with trams when she joined Yarra Trams as a cleaner during her first two years in Australia.

Describing those early years as "tough", she said her family, were “ineligible to receive welfare payments as they were refugees but with New Zealand citizenship at the time they arrived in Australia.”

There are around 500 trams servicing Melbourne. (AAP Image/ Yarra Trams) Source: AAP / AAP Image/ Yarra Trams

She said “I strived to be distinguished in my work (and) I got promoted from a cleaning lady to a supervisor soon after I began working there."

After this, Ms Ahad and her team began touring the company's various centres to train other cleaning crews.

“When the company saw our ability to work diligently, they gave us the opportunity to train the rest of the employees," she said.

Sights set on driving trams

But Ms Ahad said she had already set her sights on becoming a tram driver.

"It was not that easy. There were hundreds of applicants who were in their thirties and whose English was very fluent, while I was in my fifties and not as proficient in English as them," she said.

She first passed a "difficult" theory test.

"The test was difficult and required technical English language that I did not know, but I studied very hard and diligently until I passed the test," Ms Ahad said.

After this, she said she embarked on six weeks of intensive theoretical and practical training including a driving test on Melbourne streets, which she "did not know accurately."

"Success in the driving test requires 100 per cent, without errors. The company does not accept 95 per cent (for example)," she said.

Of her first day on the job, she said, "I read all the prayers and wished myself well on the first day as I was nervous because I did not know the streets of Melbourne accurately and I had to learn everything about them before the first day."

The first day, the first week, and the first year passed, and here I am, 12 years on, driving the tram in the streets of Melbourne, especially to the areas where the Arab community lives.

Marline Abdul Ahad

As a mother of three sons and a daughter, and a grandmother, Ms Ahad said she was a source of pride not only for her family but for strangers in the wider community.

Many people who knew her from the community, when they boarded her tram "whispered to their children or those with them: 'She is an Iraqi'," she said.

Finally, Ms Ahad says, "Even I myself did not expect that at 50, I would be able to drive a tram in Melbourne, but no one should say that (anything is) impossible. If they want something, they must strive, persevere, plan and implement," she said.