Leicester Trams

Not strictly tram related but an opportunity to spread news on the work of our group amongst sympathetic ears. I travelled with fellow members of the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust on the beautifully restored former LCT 1972 Metro-Scania No.225 belonging to Leicester Tram 31 Group Member, Michael Webster.

Michael's wonderful and now incredibly rare former LCT Metro-Scania pauses for a photo-stop at the services on the A14.

Travelling in convoy with us was the equally good looking former LCT No.301, a 1974 dual door Scania Metropolitan belonging to the LTHT chairman himself, Richard Worman.

Following us along the A14 was fellow LTHT members in the Scania Metropolitan No.301..

Sadly, I discovered why the nick name for Showbus is ‘Showerbus’! The rain came in not long after we arrived at Duxford’s Imperial War Museum site and to everyone’s disappointment it never stopped all day. I never took any pictures whilst there as the weather rather spoiled the chance for great photography. I did however meet lots of interesting people and even an ex-pat who now lives in America but had worked as an artist on the restoration of Leicester Museum’s Renown bus No.329 back in the 1970′s. He told me he still has fond memories of his work on the vehicle and one day we may need to call on his expertise for our own project! I also made a few purchases of Leicester Tram related items which will go towards our exhibition one day.

It was sad about the rain all day but certainly worth the visit just for the ride on 225 again!

Today we visited in the hope of being able to remove a bulkhead and see how it was assembled originally. We saw how it was assembled but to our disappointment the rubbing strips that hide some the important screws and bolts were fixed so tightly that the only way to remove them was to drill out the heads of the old screws. Our cordless drill soon ran out of battery power and although we learnt an awful lot we achieved only a small amount.

We did achieve more on the tidying up front – lots of clutter around the body caused us to tear our hair out a little – something we hope will be less of a problem when we move the body to our own premises.

To satisfy our curiosity further we had a poke around with a metal detector over the site where we knew another tram body used to reside on the same farm and to our pleasant surprise we discovered the remains of the brake gear which still pivoted on its mounting! We’ll come back for that later but as we get nearer to Winter – we really need to push on with the body.

A much tidier surrounding and a lot learnt - but dismanatling the bulkhead is not going to be as quick as we first thought. Which is a good thing really as it proves it is still strong!

We were invited to put on a small display at the APS ‘Seaside Special’ event. The event went extremely well and I encourage anyone who has never been to pay this museum a visit – it truly is a great day out for the whole family.

Our first attempt at a group display incorporated the internal bulkhead with lots of photographs and information sheets. We had a rolling slideshow on the computer screen to show our progress to date. We handed out lots of 'Tram 31' cards - even the Lord Mayor of Leicester took one with him. He promised us he'd put a link from his website to ours too!

We met lots of people who wished us well and one man even tipped us off on where we may find the remains of another Leicester Tram body! (More on that when we investigate further!!!)

A big thank you to all at Abbey Pumping Station, the LMTA Volunteers and the Museum staff, for making the day such a success and for allowing us a small table.

In an effort to stay on schedule we arrive in numbers today to make a start on removing the roof. This is the first step to actually transporting the vehicle from the site that has been it’s home for the last 60 years. No.31 has been on this spot for longer than it was in service to the city!

The roof is made up of 'T' section steel, wooden chocks and pitch pine boarding. The first step is to strip the pitch pine boarding to expose the steel and give us an idea of condition. Stripping the boards presented no challenge whatsoever, the boards were so badly decomposed that the boarding just turned to dust as we attempted to lift them!.

Before we stripped the boarding we photographed and measured everything. The sunlight exposed some distinctive markings on the boards. These stripes mark out the steel treads that were screwed to the floor of the upper deck to prevent passengers from slipping over and also providing a way for excess water to drain away.

Michael clears away the remains of boards - not much we can do with these but the wooden chocks can be boxed for re-use.

The tie-rod nuts came undone with incredible ease much to our surprise!

Looking more like the inside of a viking boat the body is becoming less like a tram every visit. The damaged side (on the right) now minus the vertical window posts now reveals the true extent of the bellying out. This was caused by the weakening vertical posts transferring the weight above and actually forcing the lower side further away.

An area we couldn't get to before - the South end of the saloon. Still with some woodwork visible from its conversion to an enclosed platform. At the bottom of the vehicle the front fender can be seen - it has survived very well having been buried underground for a long time.

With the South end now fully accessible we remove the sliding door and take off the farmers additional boards that had been nailed on to it. Behind the additions we discover the same transfer as on the north sliding door requesting standing passengers to move right in to the saloon.

Left side of the bulkhead sliding door cover and sliding door removed. The bottoms look like they will need some repair but there is no reason why these can't be re-used once repaired.

Barrie gets out the trademarked British Bit and Brace and begins to remove the right hand side of the bulkhead.

A team photo at the end of a very successful day. (Left to Right) Adrian, Chris, Michael, Barrie, Steve, Michael. Thanks to all who helped today - also Paul too, who managed to fit four hours in between wiring up a house in the morning and then going off to play five a side football! The tram alone was enough for me and I think we all left exhausted!

Next visit will be to split the sides!