National Tramway Museum


The National Tramway Museum is located at Crich,, Derbyshire, England. The museum contains over 60 trams built between 1873 and 1982 and is set within a recreated period village containing a working pub, cafe, old-style sweetshop and tram depots. The museum's collection of trams runs through the village-setting with visitors transported one-mile out into the local countryside and back. The museum is operated by the Tramway Museum Society, a registered charity.
The trams at Crich mostly ran in cities in the United Kingdom prior to the 1960s, with trams rescued as the systems closed. Most of the UK tram networks, with a few exceptions closed before the 1960s. The last to close was Glasgow Corporation Tramways in 1962, a tramway well represented at the museum, leaving just the Blackpool tramway as the sole surviving first-generation tramway. There has been a recent revival in the use of trams, with new networks opened including Croydon Tramlink, Sheffield Supertram, Midland Metro, Edinburgh Trams, Manchester Metrolink and the nearby Nottingham Express Transit being built and extended.
In recent years the work of the society members and the income earned from visitors has been supplemented by grants from the Heritage Lottery Fund, the Designation Challenge Fund of the Museums, Libraries and Archives Council and the DEFRA Aggregates Levy Sustainability Fund. The Crich Tramway Village remains an independent charity, which receives no funding from the state or local government and relies on the voluntary contribution made by members of the Tramway Museum Society and its visitors.
The village is also home to the Eagle Press, a small museum dedicated to letterpress printing including an 1859 Columbian printing press.

History of the museum

History of the site

, the great railway pioneer, had a close connection with Crich and the present tramway follows part of the mineral railway he built to link the quarry with Ambergate.
While building the North Midland Railway from Derby to Rotherham and Leeds, Stephenson had found rich coal seams in the Clay Cross area and he saw a new business opportunity. Crich was already well known for the quality of the limestone and Stephenson recognised that he could use the local coal and limestone to produce burnt lime for agricultural purposes, and then utilise the new railway to distribute it. Cliff Quarry, where Crich Tramway Village is now located, was acquired by Stephenson's company and to link the quarry with the limekilns he had built alongside the new North Midland Railway at Ambergate, Stephenson constructed a gauge line - apparently the first metre gauge railway in the world. Stephenson was born in Wylam in Northumberland in 1781, but he lived the last 10 years of his life in Chesterfield, often bringing visitors to Crich to see the mineral railway and take refreshment in one of the village inns. He died in 1848 and is buried in Holy Trinity Church, Chesterfield. Stephenson's railway soldiered on for many years.

Tramway Museum Society

In the period after the Second World War, when most of the remaining British tramways were in decline or actually closing, the first event in the history of the National Tramway Museum took place. A group of enthusiasts on a farewell tour of Southampton Tramways in August 1948 decided to purchase one of the open top trams on which they had ridden. For the sum of £10 they purchased number 45 – now included in collection at the museum. From this purchase grew the idea of a working museum devoted to operating tramcars. From the original group developed the Tramway Museum Society, established in 1955, incorporated as a company limited by guarantee in 1962, and recognised as an educational charity in 1963. Over the years, the society has drawn its members from people of all age groups and all sectors of the community, working together in different ways to create the tramway museum.

Acquisition of the site

After a sustained search across the country, in 1959 the society's attention was drawn to the then derelict limestone quarry at Crich in Derbyshire, from which members of the Talyllyn Railway Preservation Society were recovering track from Stephenson's mineral railway for their pioneering preservation project in Wales. After a tour of the quarry, members of the society agreed to lease – and later purchase – part of the site and buildings. Over the years, by the efforts of the society members, a representative collection of tramcars was brought together and restored, tramway equipment was acquired, a working tramway was constructed and depots and workshops were built. Recognising that tramcars did not operate in limestone quarries, the society agreed in 1967 to create around the tramway the kind of streetscape through which the trams had run and thus the concept of the Crich Tramway Village was born. Members then turned their attention to collecting items of street furniture and even complete buildings, which were then adapted to house the Museum's collections of books, photographs and archives.

Timeline

The museum has over 60 tramcars from locations such as Berlin, Blackpool, Chesterfield, The Hague, Derby, Douglas, Dundee, Edinburgh, Gateshead, Glasgow, Grimsby, Halle, Howth, Johannesburg, Leeds, Leicester, Liverpool, London, New York, Newcastle-upon-Tyne, Oporto, Paisley, Prague, Sheffield, Southampton and Sydney. The majority of the trams at Crich are double-decker trams built between 1900 and 1930, and several have open tops. There are a few trams in the collection that were built after the Second World War, and these give an idea of how the British tram industry might have developed if services had not declined.
Every operating day, the museum selects between two and four trams and operates them over its line to Glory Mine, via Wakebridge. In addition, there is a 1969 Berlin tram which has been converted into an "Access Tram", complete with wheelchair lift, which allows visitors with disabilities to travel the line.
London County Council 1622 was originally an open ended unrefurbished car, but was restored as an enclosed "rehab" car. Its bogies are ex Feltham.

[|Southampton 45]

Southampton 45 was built 1903 by Hurst Nelson as an open-top double-decker tram with a 3 windowed lower saloon. At some stage it was rebuilt with canopies and 4 saloon windows by the Southampton Corporation Tramways, however the exact date is unknown.
This tram was the one that started the whole preservation movement, being bought by enthusiasts for just £10 in 1949. However, there was no National Tramway Museum in 1949, and so the tram travelled the country staying at many locations, including Marton Depot in Blackpool, and the National Motor Museum at Beaulieu in Hampshire. Whilst it was at Beaulieu, [|Newcastle 102] was also there, and together they formed an open-air display, before heading to Crich in 1960.
Because it needed to pass under the medieval Bargate Arch in Southampton, the tram's proportions were altered. It also has knifeboard seating on the top deck for this reason.
Southampton 45 was withdrawn from use in September 2014, requiring an extensive overhaul.

London 106

LCCT 106 was built in April 1903, as one of 100 'B' Class Tramcars by the Electric Railway and Tramway Carriage Works, Preston, on behalf of Dick, Kerr and Company.
106 was originally an open-topped tram with reversed stairs. There were 22 seats downstairs and a further 34 upstairs. The body is of a timber construction with steel strengthening. By 1906, the reversed stairs had been altered to direct ones, and in 1911 it was rebuilt with a fully enclosed top deck. It used the conduit style of pickup, with the skate underneath the centre of the truck, in its original state, before being converted to trolley pole when it became a snow broom.
It was withdrawn from passenger service in 1925, and was converted into snowbroom No. 022 in 1927 by removing the top deck, fitting brushes under the platforms and increasing the power of the motors. It last saw active service in this state in April 1952.
After escaping the scrapyard, 106 spent many years in storage, and the London County Council Tramways Trust began its restoration in 1970, at their Bonwell Street workshop in East London. It took 13 years to return it to service, before it was launched at Crich on 15 May 1983, 80 years to the day after the opening of the London County Council electric tramway to Tooting.
The tram has since covered in excess of in passenger service. It has been restored to represent one of 8 B/4 class cars with an open top and trolley mast. After over twenty years of service, 106 was withdrawn in 2007 and placed on static display. In 2013 it was moved into the workshop for an extensive overhaul. This was completed in June 2015 and the tram is now operational again.

Leeds 180

Leeds 180 was built in 1931 by Brush Electrical Machines, and is often referred to as either a Horsfield or Showboat tramcar.
It is currently in a red and white livery, with various advertisements, and it is currently in operational condition after an overhaul in 2009.

Leeds 399

Leeds 399 was built at Leeds Kirkstall Works, and entered service in 1925.
Leeds 399 was the second passenger tram to arrive at Crich, however it faced a lengthy restoration, returning only to service in 1991. It is fitted with a trolley pole, without a rope, meaning that it can use trolley reversers at the termini. It is currently in the operational pool, after undergoing remedial work to the exterior paintwork.

Leeds 602

Leeds 602 is one of three experimental tramcars built for Leeds City Tramways, the others being [|Leeds 600], and Leeds 601. The tramcar is the only vehicle at Crich to use VAMBAC, and one of only four in the country - two of which are at Blackpool, and the other being at the East Anglia Transport Museum.
It entered service on 1 June 1953, and was built by bus manufacturer Charles H. Roe. Leeds 602 was withdrawn at the last ever "close of play" in 1957. The design of 602 owes a lot to the Glasgow [|Cunarders] and [|Coronations], because the General Manager of Leeds at the time was A. B. Findlay, who did at one stage produce drawings of a single-decker Cunarder. Findlay used these ideas to build two identical prototypes, and Leeds 602 was fitted with VAMBAC equipment under the Bow Collector. In addition, all its fittings are electrical, making it a very complicated tram.
602's service life was spent working the Hunslet Route around Leeds - the blind for which can be seen in the picture - and it was here until the end of its working life, when it was acquired for preservation at the National Tramway Museum. Leeds 601 was also preserved, but was destroyed soon after in an arson attack.
Once at Crich it was used in service between 1967 and 1972, before its first workshop attention in 1973. It saw further use in 1974-5, and returned to the workshop in 1977. It was back in the fleet for the 1979-80 seasons, before having a third bout of workshop attention in 1986. Following this it had a longer operational life between 1987 and 1995, but it was finally withdrawn due to the discovery of a leaking roof. It was resurrected on a limited-use basis for the Tramathon in 2003, and then it was withdrawn to have attention to its leaky roof. This was finally fixed, and a long-needed repaint was undertaken. It returned for the Tramathon and Enthusiast's Day in 2005, and was used for six days in 2006. One of which was the enthusiast's day, which allowed the opportunity to ride both a bus and tram built by Charles H. Roe. The tram has not been used since, and now stands on display in the Exhibition Hall.

Liverpool 869

This tram is in a green and white livery, and is affectionately known as the Green Goddess. One of Liverpool's fleet of Bogie streamliners, it was later sold on to Glasgow, from where it was bought. Fitted with EP control, is often used for UDEs. Following five years out of passenger carrying service, 869 was returned to working order in September 2015 following an overhaul.

Operation of the Tramway

Methods of current collection

The museum's overhead wire system has been built so that trams with any type of current collection can be used. The museum currently houses trams with trolley poles, bow collectors and pantographs.
Other forms used to demonstrate how current can be collected:
The museum features as one of the key locations in the 2012 film Sightseers.
In the opening of Women in Love.
It also features heavily in the John Shuttleworth song "Dandelion and Burdock".
The museum possesses the only remaining Mk2 police box, which formed the basis for the design of the TARDIS from Doctor Who.

Gallery