IF THE tram is Melbourne's most iconic object, Lenny Bates is the man who would be best qualified to drive it.

Mr Bates, who died this week of pancreatic cancer, aged 81, ferried tram travellers around Melbourne for more than 55 years, reluctantly calling it a day just a few weeks ago.

Tram driver Lenny Bates at the Kew tram depot in June 2005. Credit:Paul Harris

Colleagues who gathered at the Kew depot to farewell him say he was ''the last of his kind'', a tram driver who lived for the job, and whose devotion to his passengers was almost fanatical.

''Lenny epitomised the ideal of service to the community,'' says Kew depot starter John Andrews, who worked with Mr Bates for more than 40 years.