National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire: London 1

The next major restoration project at the National Tramway Museum is London County Council 1, the prototype for a new fleet of double-deck tramcars that was launched at a tramway-industry conference in 1932. LCC tramways were amalgamated into London Transport the following year, and a policy of tram-replacement meant that the design never went into production.

Nicknamed “Bluebird” because of its distinctive original livery, it has been red for most of its life – first as London Transport no 1 and – after it was sold to Leeds Corporation in 1951 – as Leeds 301.

Because of its historic significance it was donated to the then Museum of British Transport at Clapham in 1957 and eventually found its way to Crich.

There it remained a static exhibit, mouldering quietly, until its condition became a matter of concern and controversy. The materials used in its construction – aluminium in contact with steel – have caused galvanic corrosion, which if unchecked would cause it to disintegrate. Should it be brought back to working order, which would involve dismantling and the inevitable replacement of mechanical parts and bodywork? Or should it be treated as a relic, too important to be touched?

The resolution has been to go for full restoration, with a forensic, meticulously documented survey of its condition to ensure that historically valuable parts that can’t be reused are kept for future reference.

It will be a particularly arduous restoration of a unique vehicle: one commentator remarked, “Little is known about how this tram was constructed so it will literally be a case of learning more about the tram by taking it apart.”

It has also proved to be exceptionally expensive.  The London County Council Tramways Trust has apparently raised around half a million pounds to put this magnificent vehicle back in service for the first time since 1957.

I’m more than happy to see another magnificent, significant historic vehicle brought back to life.

National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire: Sheffield 510, upper-deck interior

National Tramway Museum, Crich, Derbyshire: Sheffield 510, lower-deck interior

The National Tramway Museum proudly unveiled their most recent restoration project, Sheffield 510, in its spectacular “Sheffield’s Last Tram” livery, in May 2014.

One of two surviving Roberts cars – the other, 513, is now at the East Anglia Transport Museum, Carlton Colville – its carefully restored livery commemorates its status as the very last tram in the procession which closed Sheffield’s first-generation tramway in October 1960.

These fine trams, a logical and elegant development of the pre-war standard Sheffield trams, ran at most for ten years from 1950: indeed, the last three were delivered in 1952 after the decision had been taken to abandon the tramway in favour of diesel buses.

Along with the Glasgow Corporation’s longer, bogie Cunarder trams, they represent the final development of sixty years of double-deck street trams in Britain.

The detailed log of 510’s restoration, which began at the end of August 2012, shows that it was a complicated and extremely careful operation: http://tramcarsponsorship.org/news.html.

At the time it was taken out of service at Crich in 2007, 510 was making a great deal more noise than these famously quiet cars should do. The resilient gearing by the Sheffield manufacturer, Metropolitan Vickers, had worn out and has been completely renewed in the restoration.

The other concern was that the Last Tram livery, with hand-painted murals illustrating episodes in the history of Sheffield tramways, was deteriorating badly. The original panels have been conserved, and new panels coach-painted with meticulous reproductions of images which, in 1960, were intended only to last a week.

The seats, red leather upstairs and green moquette downstairs, are fresh and the whole tram has been repainted inside and out.

510 now looks as good as new, and in some respects it is new: metal, wood, paint and fabric deteriorate over time, however sheltered their surroundings. No museum piece can be preserved in aspic, and the painstaking restorations that the National Tramway Museum carries out year after year enable visitors to experience the past in the present, knowing it’ll roll on into the future.

Stephenson’s ‘Rocket’, Science Museum, South Kensington, London

One of the precious exhibits in the South Kensington Science Museum is the remains of the original Rocket, the revolutionary locomotive, accredited to George Stephenson but probably mainly the work of his son Robert, which won the Rainhill Trials in 1829 and headed the first ever inter-city train on the Liverpool & Manchester Railway the following year.

It was by no means the first practical steam locomotive, but it was certainly the first that could travel at speed to operate passenger trains between distant destinations.

The Stephensons’ design brought together a number of features which were either new or had been tried tentatively in earlier locomotives – a single pair of driving wheels unencumbered with heavy connecting rods, linked directly to a diagonally positioned cylinder, powered by a multi-tube boiler (like an immersion heater with twenty-five elements) with a separate, coke-fired firebox and a blast pipe to increase the heat of the fire.

It was a shrewd response to the specific requirements of the Rainhill Trials, and finally settled the argument about hauling trains on gently graded lines by cable or horse-power. It trounced the only two serious competitors, Novelty and Sans Pareil. George Stephenson took one look at his fellow-Geordie Timothy Hackworth’s Sans Pareil and declared, “Eh mon, we needn’t fear yon thing. Her’s got naw goots.”

It was Rocket, driven by the future civil engineer, Joseph Locke, that ran over and killed the President of the Board of Trade, William Huskisson MP, at Rainhill during the opening-day ceremonies.

Rocket was superseded by superior designs within four years, and was put to various uses until 1862, when it became a museum piece, donated to the Science Museum’s predecessor, the Patent Office.

It is shown in its 1862 condition, because its integrity as an artefact means much more than any attempt at restoration.

Anthony Burton’s 1979 BBC-TV documentary, The Rainhill Story: Stephenson’s Rocket, shows what was involved in bringing Rocket and its competitors to life in the late twentieth century: http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/p011w92v/the-rainhill-story-stephensons-rocket#group=p01277qd;

The various replicas, some in working order and one in cutaway form, show what Rocket was like when it was built. The original is original.

Darlington Railway Station: Pacer unit 142084

Of all the signals of a government’s contempt for the passengers of its nationalised railway, none is more palpably cheap and nasty than the Pacer unit.

They were built for British Rail at a time when economy was paramount, using a four-wheel chassis based on the experimental High Speed Freight Vehicle and bodywork derived from the standard Leyland National bus, another – more successful – attempt at nationwide standardisation built between 1972 and 1985 by British Leyland and the National Bus Company.

Effectively a bus body on a freight-wagon chassis, with basic bus seats and inward opening doors, these lumpen machines pick up every bump and indentation in the track, screech round curves intended for eight-wheeled bogie vehicles and make particularly heavy weather over traversing points and junctions. They are noisy and most are underpowered.

A rear-end collision at Winsford in 1999 showed up the physical frailty of the Pacer design: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/383785.stm.  Fortunately, the unit concerned was running empty, and the driver, at the opposite end of the train to the crash, was unscathed.  But the rear cab was destroyed and the bodywork of both coaches detached from the underframes.

These flimsy trains were built in the 1980s with a design-life of twenty years, but almost all of them are still in service, and they will be needed until at least 2020 because no new diesel railcar units are being built.

A number of early-model Pacers were sold in the late 1990s to the Islamic Republic of Iran Railways where they have not found favour.

There is, inevitably, a Pacer Preservation Society, with a magazine Pacer Chaser: http://www.pacerpreservationsociety.co.uk.

One day, it will only be possible to ride these beasts in a museum. For the foreseeable future, however, regular passengers have no choice: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30945127.

Update:  A BBC News report indicates that the habit of patronising Northern commuters with life-expired rolling stock is set to continue with a proposal to upgrade 1978 District Line trains to work in Yorkshire and Lancashire:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-31536600.

Further update:  The award of the Northern Rail franchise to Arriva Rail North Ltd signals at last the imminent demise of the Pacers:  http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-35048842.

Final update:  The very last Pacer in public service travelled between Kirkby and Manchester Victoria on November 27th 2020:  Final farewell to Northern’s fleet of Pacer trains – BBC News.

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.

London Transport RM1

The prototype of the last generation of conventional rear-entrance double-deck London buses is RM1, the very first Routemaster, built in 1954 and brought into use after various modifications in 1956.

It still exists – and runs – in its 1960 condition at the London Transport Museum’s Acton Depot:  http://www.ltmcollection.org/vehicles/objects/object.html?IXtype=&_IXSR_=UnPctRYPqQC&_IXMAXHITS_=1&_IXFIRST_=20&_IXSESSION_=.

When you’ve seen one red bus you may feel you’ve seen them all, but this design was special.  Conceived after the war, when the London Transport RT type was in production, the Routemaster was custom-designed for service in the capital.

Its designers, Arthur “Bill” Durrant, Colin Curtis and Douglas Scott, set out to supersede the RT, so the Routemaster was built of aluminium, three quarters of a ton lighter than the RT, with independent front suspension, a fully automatic gearbox and more powerful brakes.  It seated 64, eight more than the RT.

It was intended to make the most of London Transport’s innovative Aldenham Bus Works, which ran a production-line overhaul system to inspect, refurbish and test vehicles in the shortest possible time.

2,876 of these splendid buses were built and nearly half of them still exist.  Their sturdy construction and sound design meant that, despite their disadvantages of limited capacity and accessibility and the need for two-man operation, they outlasted newer vehicles and remained popular with passengers and crews.

It’s no accident that the New Routemaster, [http://www.tfl.gov.uk/modes/buses/new-routemaster] sponsored by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has earned a place on the streets of 21st-century London:  a thousand of them were in service by the end of 2017.

London Transport RT1

The London Bus Museum [http://www.londonbusmuseum.com] at Brooklands, Surrey, exists to chronicle the development of the London bus from the earliest days of horse-drawn buses to the end of the twentieth century.

One of its most treasured exhibits is RT1, dating from August 1939, the prototype of nearly seven thousand classic post-war London double-deckers.  Its diesel engine, air brakes and pre-selector gearbox made it easy to drive and comfortable to ride.

It stands in a line of development that was pioneered by the London General Omnibus Company and its manufacturing arm, the Associated Equipment Company [AEC], that shed the horse-bus ancestry of early motor buses and was continued after the formation of London Transport in 1933 by the design-conscious CEO, Frank Pick (1878-1941), who insisted that every possible aspect of London’s public transport operations should be elegant and attractive.

RT1 remained in LT ownership until 1978, was sold for preservation and got into various scrapes, including time in the USA, before being scrupulously restored to 1939 condition at a cost of over £200,000.

The London Bus Museum acquired it in 2010 and displays it in a clear chronological sequence of vehicles dating from the mid-1870s to 1979.