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The tram car heads down the Wildwood boardwalk..

(Peter Genovese/The Star-Ledger)

This is season two of The Real Jersey Shore, a series of human interest stories about the Jersey Shore. The real Jersey Shore — not the one in the MTV series. We'll introduce you to memorable people and places up and down the coast each week. Have a story suggestion? E-mail pgenovese@starledger.com or call (973) 392-1765.

The Five Most Annoying Words at the Jersey Shore every summer are not "Your license and registration, please" or "We are all booked up," but a quintet of seemingly innocuous words that, when strung together, have managed to grate on generations of visitors to Wildwood:

"Watch the tram car, please. Watch the tram car, please …"

The announcement, made as Wildwood’s legendary tram cars roll down the boardwalk, even gets on the nerves of the woman who recorded it in 1971.

"If I’m walking on the boardwalk and I hear it, over and over," Floss Stingel says with a laugh, "it can drive me a little crazy."

The phrase is as synonymous with Wildwood as "Jersey Shore" is with Seaside. You can buy "Watch the Tram Car Please" T-shirts — even toy tram cars — on the Wildwood boardwalk.

The Voice may be stern and scolding, but it belongs to a sweet senior citizen who retired from South Jersey Gas and now does volunteer work for a church and food pantry.

"I just spoke into a tape recorder and said it over and over," Stingel says, of recording the announcement.

More than 400,000 people ride the tram cars every summer. Thrown in the millions who visit Wildwood every summer, and that’s a lot of people who have heard The Voice.

"I never expected it to go on this long," Stingel says.

Somehow, "Watch the tram car, please" manages to stand out in the boardwalk symphony that is Wildwood. Call it Seaside Surround Sound, with the nonstop chatter of wheel operators ("Step right up, step right in"); tape-recorded announcements from food stands ("Voted best on the boardwalk!"); piped-in rock music; the happy, terrified screams of kids on rides; and the endless squawk of seagulls, the Shore’s most aggressive.

Bill Murphy Jr. drives a tram car back to a nearby pier.

The tram cars — a seashore mass transit system like no other — have been running on the Wildwood boardwalk since 1949. Four wooden cars, still in operation in Wildwood, appeared at the 1939 New York World’s Fair. In 1949, the cars, which had appeared at fairs and festivals in the intervening years, were bought by one Sebastian Ramagosa, who formed the Tram Car Amusement Company.

On June 11, 1949, the tram cars debuted; a staff of "18 young ladies," according to one account, drove the cars and collected the 10-cent fare.

A legend was born.

"I’ll go to Florida with a Wildwood T-shirt, people will come up to me and say, ‘Watch the tram car, please,’â" Irene Nesbitt says.

Nesbitt — they call her Sarge around here — is the operations manager for the tram car operation, formally known as Boardwalk Sightseer. It is owned by the Wildwoods Boardwalk Special Improvement District; Nesbitt and three partners owned the tram car business from 1994 to 2003.

Today, there are three four-car trains and five five-car trains. Six trains run 10 minutes apart during the day, eight trains run eight minutes apart at night. Each train holds 50 to 60 passengers and is manned by a driver, conductor and assistant.

Sarge may keep the operation going, but Rick DiVenti keeps the cars rolling. The shop manager does all maintenance on the cars.

Helping out is Bill Murphy Jr., whose dad, Bill Murphy Sr., is a tram car driver. There’s also a mother-daughter team, Audrey Murray and her daughter, also named Audrey.

John Gigliotti — known as Gigi — is the operation’s resident character; his age is somewhere between late 60s and mid-80s.

"He tells everyone he’s 69; the highest he goes is 71," Nesbitt says.

Operating the tram car is not exactly like negotiating the Parkway on a summer weekend. You can go in one direction only, you can’t possibly get lost and driving the car is only slightly more difficult than steering a tricycle.

Turn on the toggle switch, apply the gas or brake pedals, keep going in a straight line. Drivers activate the "Watch the tram car, please" announcement with a switch when they see pedestrians nearby.

You can get on and off the tram car at any time.

Passengers can flag down the tram car at any point in its 2-mile path from 16th Street in North Wildwood to Cresse Avenue, the border between Wildwood and Wildwood Crest.

The tram cars run from 11 a.m. to midnight, when the piers close. They operate rain or shine, except during torrential downpours or if there is lightning. The fare is $3, up from $2.50 last summer, but you can buy a wristband for $6, which allows unlimited rides from 11 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Mondays through Fridays. There are also 5-, 10- and 25-ticket books.

"Best ride on the boardwalk," Nesbitt says proudly.

Biggest moment in the tram car’s history? When HBO’s "Sex and the City’’ filmed one of Wildwood’s tram cars on the Atlantic City boardwalk.

And yes, "Watch the tram car, please" was part of the scene.

Floss is The Voice, but sometimes, people think it’s Sarge, who runs the 88-employee operation with a mix of military precision and tough motherly love.

"They think it’s me because it’s a certain kind of voice — annoying," Nesbitt says, laughing.

And how many times does Floss think her voice has been heard on the boardwalk over the years?

"Oh my gosh," she replies. "I don’t think they can count that high."

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