Seven trams in service…
The blog recently recorded that we presently have the rather grand total of seven trams available for service! To note this occasion, Matt Ellis and the tramway team arranged to parade and photograph all seven cars in the Town and around the Tramway – though sadly out of hours for operational reasons. This was to produce a crop of up to date photographs (by David Watchman) for future use in publicity material.
Here is a selection of images of the occasion, with various scenes being created to show just how many seven appears to be when placed into the street!
The trams included: Manchester 765 (visiting from the Heaton Park Tramway), Oporto 196, Blackpool & Fleetwood 40 (from the National Tramway Museum at Crich), Newcastle 114, Blackpool 31, Sheffield 264 and Sunderland 16.
The last time we had seven trams together at Beamish was in April 2013, when a public parade during one evening of the Great North Steam Fair saw 114 head a line up of cars in the Town area – including three open-toppers together. 114 was bedecked for the 40th anniversary celebration of the tramway – fifty years won’t be so far away!!!
Trams in the parade included: Newcastle 114, Gateshead 10 (as G&I 26), Sunderland 101 (Blackpool 703), Blackpool 605, Oporto 196, Lisbon 730 (visiting from the Birkenhead tramway and making a rare appearance with the Oporto car – the two systems in Portugal being both remote and different gauges), Glasgow 1068 (visiting from the National Tramway Museum) and Blackpool 31 (running on one motor at the time).
The complete list of visiting trams (including three that were resident and have now left) looks like this:
Tramcars that have visited Beamish
Leeds 6 SD 4w Hurst Nelson 1901 03/10 – 03/13 (Heaton Park Tramway)
Cardiff 131 SD 4w Brush 1905 04/10 (National Tramway Museum)
Manchester L53 DD 4w Manchester Carriage & Tramways Co 1880s 05/09 & 09/10 (Heaton Park Tramway)
Manchester 765 SD 8w Manchester Corporation Tramways 1914 04/11 – 05/11 & 03/19 – 08/19 (Heaton Park Tramway)
Blackpool 11 SD 8w English Electric 1939 23/08/11 – 05/09/11 (EATM, Carlton Colville)
Birkenhead 20 DD 4w Milnes 1900 03/12 – 04/12 (Birkenhead Tramway)
Blackpool 304 SD Charles Roberts 1952 10/12 – 03/13 (Lancastrian Transport Trust)
Lisbon 730 SD 4w 1930 04/12 (Birkenhead Tramway)
Glasgow 1068 DD 4w Hurst Nelson 1919 04/12 (National Tramway Museum)
Blackpool 167 SD 8w English Electric 1928 01/14 – 04/14 (National Tramway Museum)
Blackpool 280 SD 8w English Electric 1934/1960(reb) 12/13 – 03/15 (Heaton park Tramway)
Blackpool & Fleetwood 40 SD 8w United Electric Car Co 1914 03/19 – 09/19 (National Tramway Museum)
Longer-term resident tramcars no longer based at Beamish
Blackpool 233 SD 8w English Electric 1934 (Lancastrian Transport Trust)
Blackpool/Sunderland 703/101 DD 8w English Electric 1934
Blackpool 284 SD 8w Brush 1937 Never operated at Beamish
So this just leaves Sheffield 513, Gateshead 52, Oporto 65, Blackpool 754 and N&G 49 unrepresented in this post!
also Blackpool 147 was a visitor