Wirral Tramway

Wirral Tramway
Two trams pass each other at Pacific Road.
Background
Owner	Wirral Borough Council
Locale	Wirral
Transit type	Trams; Light Rail
Number of lines	One
Number of stations	Woodside Ferry, Shore Road, Pacific Road, College ,Egerton Bridge, Old Colonial.
Chief executive	Steve Maddox
Operation
Began operation	1995
Operator(s)	Wirral Borough Council
Number of vehicles	Heritage Trams
Technical
Track gauge	Standard
Average speed	12mph

Wirral Tramway is a heritage tramway opened in 1995 by Wirral Borough Council/Hamilton Quarter partnership and was operated by Blackpool Transport Services until 2005 when the council took over the license to run the tramway. . The Museum and tramway were set up with the assistance of The Hamilton Quarter (quango) and various volunteer groups including Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society, 201 Bus Group, Merseyside Bus Club, etc and at present operates on Saturday and Sunday afternoons, plus school holidays. In recent years Wirral Council have sought a new owner with the funds to develop the tramway further and talks are in progress with possible new owners. In the future, there might be extensions to Seacombe, and the centre of Birkenhead, plus certain railway stations.

The tramway operates two Hong Kong trams specially built for the tramway in 1992. The gauge of these is different to normal Hong Kong trams, which is 3ft 6 ins, in that they are British Standard Gauge of 4ft 8 1/2". They are numbered 69 and 70 to follow on from the numbering of the original 'Birkenhead Corporation Tramways'(their numbering went up to No.68. These are run from Wirral Transport Museum, Taylor Street, Birkenhead As well as these, trams from the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society (MTPS) are also used at various times. These are:

• Liverpool Corporation Tramways 'English Electric' Fully Enclosed 8-wheel Bogie car No.762;
• Birkenhead Corporation Tramways Open Top Milnes 4-wheel car No.20;
• Wallasey Corporation Tramways 'Bellamy' Brush 4-wheel car No.78; and
• Lisbon (Carris) Single Deck 4-wheel car No.730

Other trams are in the process of being refurbished by the MTPS as follows: Liverpool Corporation Tramways 'Baby Grand' 4-wheel car No.245 (Owned by Liverpool Museums and part of the National Collection) and Warrington Corporation Tramways 4-wheel Milnes car No.2 (could be either a Canopy car or fully enclosed; decision has not yet been made.

There are also two other trams at the museum: Birkenhead Horse car No.7 (in storage at present) Liverpool Horse tram No.43. Both require new wheelsets, and will not run on the tramway.

The museum also displays lots of other old vehicles including cars, buses, motorbikes, cycles, a huge model railway and dozens of displays and information about old vehicles. The museum is run by very helpful paid and voluntary staff, who can provide all sorts of information about the exhibits. This is one of the most comprehensive transport museums in the country and connects with the Wirral Tramway and Taylor Street

External links

• add link to operators site