"It's trying to save as much of the original as possible ... it looks like a cruddy old board but then it's all oak under there."
Although one section of the tram needed to be completely rebuilt, much of the work was restoring what was already there, he said.
"It goes back to the age: who would build a pole like that to hold wires or bits and pieces? That's the era of it. It's exquisite."
Tram 17 was built by the British Electric Car Company of Trafford Park, Manchester, England, under order for the Wellington City Corporation in 1904.
It was operational until the late 1940s when it was taken out of service.
Mrs Lang said as work progressed it was easy to imagine the tram as it might have appeared last century.
"That's when it's exciting - when you start scraping stuff off ... it's great seeing something like this come in looking very derelict and watch it going away looking precise and fine again - it's quite something.
"You can imagine all the women dressed up nicely and the men with their top hats."
As none of the original plans have survived, the couple are working off old photos and making sure to note the details of the tram's structure while taking it apart.
The Langs have just returned from a trip to Melbourne where they spent time in Ballarat checking out the bogies, or the framework for carrying the wheels, that will eventually be attached to the tramcar.
There are now only two such sets of bogies in existence in the world, one in Ballarat and one in the United Kingdom, Mr Lang says.
They will have to be severely altered to fit the gauge of the track before they can be fitted.
Once completed, the tram will have two long bench seats running through the closed section, and reversible seats in the open-seating section.
It will be painted the original red and cream colours.
Once the restoration is complete, it will be returned to the Wellington Tramway Museum in Paekakariki.
