Black Country Museum

Black Country Museum

29th June 2009

Whilst in the West Midlands a quick visit to the Black Country Museum was possible. The last few visits have been in association with the visit of our Newcastle trolleybus (No.501), so this was a chance to have a good wander around the site.

Below: A general view of the town/village centre. Note the cinema on the left, on Sunday it was showing Charlie Chaplin films.

Below: The street as viewed from the other direction. The museum was pretty busy so this was a fortuitous moment when there weren’t too many folks in the photograph!

Below: Wolverhampton Horse Tram No.23, in the back of the tram depot. The electric systems in the Black Country were narrow gauge (3 ft 6 inches), but the horse trams had been standard gauge. As a result this tram cannot be demonstrated (yet?) at the museum.

Below: The glorious WOlverhampton Sunbeam trolleybus No.433, outside the depot/village terminus. The smooth and rapid acceleration of these vehicles is impressive even today, especially for those used to rapid and quiet modern diesel buses. Quite akin to the shuttle buses on Newcastle quayside, which are battery electric.

Below: A favorite area is the canal wharf and boat yard, complete with narrow boats under restoration or stored. The one to the left is lettered GWR and is indicative of the wider interests the railway companies had.

Below: An exterior view of the tram depot, which has two roads and a solid floor for non-tramway vehicles. The tram and bus stops are on the left.

Below: A replica of a local garage, recently completed and enabling the display of numerous cars and pieces of garage equipment.

Below: A significant new development is ‘Birmingham Old Road’ (the Birmingham New Road runs alongside one part of the museum). Recently opened is the chip shop – incredibly popular and very fragrant! A whole street of buildings is being assembled, to their 1930s appearances and will include a milliners, butchers and garage amongst others. These buildings have all been relocated from the area and are faithfully rebuilt at the museum.

Below: The colliery winding and fan engines in action!

Below: The trolleybus at the other end of the route. Currently the longest UK trolleybus route in operation, followed by Sandtoft Transport Centre and the East Anglian Transport Museum. Beamish has sufficient equipment to extend the current length of wiring right around the site, to give some 1.5 miles of running, much on open roads. This would certainly be an attraction for operating these fast and quiet vehicles to show their full potential.

Below: No.49 meets No.34. No.49 has been little used in recent years owing to the poor state of the tramway track, but recent work on the infrastructure has enabled it to come back into operation once again. It was not in passenger service while I was there, but was being cleaned. To the left is a new storage building for the buses in the collection of the Black Country Museum Transport Group.

Below: The facade of a new display, a garage and showroom. Inside it is laid out in museum style, and includes well equipped workshops, ramps etc. Externally it compliments the period environment rather nicely, and makes a wonderful backdrop to photograph the transport collection against.