THESE are the rails that can carry trams back on to the streets of Liverpool for the first time in 50 years.
The first 1,000 tonnes of track for Merseytram has arrived in the UK and is just awaiting the green light before delivery to Merseyside.
M-Pact, the consortium hoping to design and build the trams, are storing the rails at a depot in Lincolnshire while the final elements of the scheme are put in place.
An M-Pact spokesman said: "We are ready to go. The steel was pressed in France and is now at our depot in Scunthorpe.
The rails represent the physical incarnation of a £300m project which has at times seemed little more than a distant pipedream, blighted by crisis meetings and damaging in-fighting.
Even this week, three senior council officers in Liverpool warned ruling Lib-Dem councillors of their fears about the risks associated with the project.
But the decision by those councillors on Monday to support the final piece of the scheme's financial package now offers genuine hope of a positive outcome.
The final move will be for the Government to decide if they believe all the risk in the project has now been "locally contained."
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