Crich Tramway Village.

[45669]

Evening All,

 

If anyone is interested to have a look, I have recently added some pictures of the Crich Tramway Village to my Flickr site.  Most of the pictures are from 2007 which is when I was last up that way, but there are also some earlier pictures from the 1960s when the Museum was in its infancy.

 

This is the first picture and clicking on it will enlarge it and take you to the others :

 

RD2580.  Leeds Car No.345. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

 

Hope that they are of interest.

[PLD]

The 1960s pics are certainly interesting - Thank you for posting.

 

With regard to your captions/queries:

 

R2556. Tram Depot at the Crich Tramway Museum. October,1965

I believe the unidentified middle Tram is the ex Sheffield car that was fitted with a bus engine and used as a Mobile generator. If correct the body was subsequently scrapped but the truck survives under another car.

 

R2557. Crich Tram Depot. October,1965

'10' is in fact Blackpool 40 (another Standard like 49). Ironically they have now swapped liveries with 40 being in Red and 49 in Green.

 

Paul

[Hando]

--The Crich tramway museum was built on the site of a former mineral railway (built by George Stephenson & the Clay Cross Company*), the preservationists decided to restore the 'line' to a passenger TRAMWAY- instead of a RAILWAY because it was called a "TRAMWAY". I guess they thought it was "common sense gone MAD". Ironic.

What was worse about this was the mineral railway (or 'TRAMWAY') was allegedly THE WORLD'S FIRST METRE GAUGE RAILWAY!!! 

 

People often confuse the disused 'pleasure' narrow gauge railway with the original tramway/railway.

 

*The Clay Cross Company was George Stephenson's iron empire, named after the tunnel (near the town) where he found masses of coal seams.

Stephenson sourced, coal from Clay Cross mines and lime from Crich.

[Froxfield2012]

To be fair to the "preservationists", I think the prime motive was to find somewhere to house the rapidly growing collection of trams:  The fact of the quarry narrow gauge railway was secondary.  There is now an exhibit which commemorates George Stephenson's association with the site and the metre gauge railway.  I have visited Crich only twice:  once back in the 1970s and once only a week or two ago.  I think it is well worth a visit.  However, next time I will try for better weather.  As it was, the thunder storm and rain were the most spectacular exhibits!!  Perhaps it serves me right for supporting what some clearly see as an act of vandalism!

 

 

[Peter Kazmierczak]

I think you pictures in the downpour are much more interesting than the more usual "full sunshine" shots.

[tractionman]

The line of the original tramway is still evident outside the museum area :

 

http://maps.nls.uk/geo/explore/#zoom=16&lat=53.0740&lon=-1.4820&layers=171

 

Personally I like to visit the tramway museum, and ride the lovely old tramcars.

 

Cheers,

 

Keith

[pointstaken]

No matter where they are taken; Ron's photos are always a pleasure to peruse. Thank you as always,

 

Dennis

[Earl Bathurst]

I was Driving 1622 the day of the torrential rain and thunder. What a storm. 5 inches of flood water at one point all around the tram.

[wagonbasher]

I was Driving 1622 the day of the torrential rain and thunder. What a storm. 5 inches of flood water at one point all around the tram.

I was at the Crich 1940's weekend with the family On Easter Sunday and had a 'front row' seat for the 2.30pm parade. It had started to drizzle a bit so the outdoor seating at the cafe in the town had emptied. 2 WW2 motorbikes, followed by 2 scots pipers and then a poor chap in military uniform collapsed in front of us.. Within 20 seconds someone was delivering CPR. The place was cleared, ambulance, first responder and then the air ambulance. After probably 45mins he was taken off in the helicopter (we believe).

 

I just wondered if anyone closer to the museum knows how he got on. Is he ok?

 

They operated from the bandstand up to the top, extending the token controlled single line working down to the band stand. we returned to the town once the emergency services had gone and it was very quite. There were still plenty of folk in civilian and military clothing but most of the punters appeared to have drifted off.

 

Interestingly the tokens they use on the single line sections are dog pull toys, one end shaped around a timber disc. One is red, one is blue. Apparently the metal ones had smashed? They like the 'rubbery' tokens, they are more durable apparently and have survived being run over.

 

 

Andy

[andyfoulger]

Hi,

 

I'm a member of PFMRS in Brierfield Lancs, we're current building a new layout based on Trawden in 1925/1930 - the tramway will be included along with a fictional railway (plans approved in parliament but never constructed).

We've modelled a number of passing loops with Y points using two moving blades ... Crich depot appears to have a Y point near the depot gates, does any one have some good photos of the Y point that can be shared in this thread or via PM ?

 

I'm hoping that no one is going to tell me that we've modelled a non-existent point (Y point with two moving blades), no, that was poorly phrased ... I'm hoping that someone will provide photos of a real Y point with two moving blades....

 

thanks in advance.

Andy

[rue_d_etropal]

Wish you had mentioned this at exhibition. If you just want a Y point for passing loop ,then, why have moving blades .I have found having stub of one blade being slightly longer than other will always divert tram one way but after talking to Alan K at Manchester, he said it did not always work if drive on tram was at rear. I think his idea of fitting a thin piece of brass wire to one rail , to guide tram on correct route would work better. The wire guides in one direction, but bends out of the way in opposite direction. 

[andyfoulger]

​We had 'parked' all thoughts of the tramway while preparing for the show.

We do need to trams running in both directions on one side of one passing loop though as this was 'working practice' in Trawden. 

'Booking hall' managed to find an image of Burnley's (my home town!) tramway under construction - a pair of standard points (I'm in trouble now) with two moving blades had been assembled and were in the process of being 'cobbled' 

 

Anyway ... 

There might be another 'thread' for this discussion though - apologies to 45669 for the 'hijack'.

 

Andy

[rue_d_etropal]

Andy, I presume you are planning to use16.5mm gauge to represent the 4ft gauge tramway, and 18.2(EM) for the railway. Of course there is no problem with moving blades on my 3D printed surrounds for Peco points.

The old Hartel(?) tram points used to have a very short moving point blade, and I had thought of trying something like that myself. In fact it probably needs to be no more than a thin piece of wire on a pivot. Making it too complex will lead to problems, especially at exhibitions. 

 

Dinosaurs were far more important at the exhibition! And I am not referring to the old guard of grumblers.

Edited December 18, 2017 by rue_d_etropal