East Anglia Transport Museum, Carlton Colville, Suffolk: London tram 1858, Blackpool tram 159 and Bournemouth trolleybus 206

It’s a long way to Carlton Colville from almost anywhere outside Norfolk and Suffolk. It lies just outside Lowestoft, the most easterly town in England.

The East Anglia Transport Museum is an entirely voluntary effort started in 1965, smaller than the National Tramway Museum in Derbyshire, but designed to display both trams and trolleybuses in a realistic street setting with a tramway leading to a woodland picnic area.

The core of its representative collection of trams, and the original raison d’être of the entire museum, is Lowestoft 14, an orthodox open-top car that had survived as a summer-house: it was cosmetically restored and is now undergoing a second restoration to running condition.

The body of a second Lowestoft tram – one of three single-deckers though there’s so far no means of knowing which one – is used for static display.

The rest of the tram fleet neatly illustrates the development of British trams – a couple of standard double-deckers, London 1858 and Blackpool 159, a modern double-decker, Sheffield 513, and a modern single-decker, Blackpool 11.

The more comprehensive collection of trolleybuses includes the oldest operational trolleybus in the world, Copenhagen 5 of 1926, London 1521, the very last trolleybus to operate in the capital, and a modern open-top trolleybus, Bournemouth 202.

On a quiet day I found it possible to ride on everything and see most of the static exhibits within a couple of hours.

The best time to visit is a special events day, for which a free bus service is customarily provided: http://www.eatm.org.uk/index.html.