OT Here are the photos of the made in Hong Kong cars.
John Carlson
Monday, October 8, 2001 9:56 PM
Right. I gather the consensus of opinion is that I can post
these photos that may or may not be off topic.
To avoid any misunderstanding I only visited the Birkenhead
Tramway in Birkenhead once so what I say is my impression from talking to staff
and not a policy statement on behalf of anyone.
Anyway the tramway itself is about a mile long and runs
through former dockland on the Mersey. Its owned by the local council but
operated by Blackpool transport services who also opperate the Blackpool and
Fleetwood tramway.
For this service the council bought two new cars at a cost of
160 000 GBP which were made in Hong Kong by the Hong Kong tramways company. The
cars are not exact replicas as they are fully double ended and are of
the slightly wider British standard gauge.
No one on the site gave me a clear explanation as to why
this option was preferred to say a couple of Blackpool trams, replicas of
local trams or second hand trams from somewhere else in the
world. Their there because their there.
They are numbered sixty nine and seventy (I think) in
continuation with the old Birkenhead fleet.
There are also a number of older local cars on the line.
Most of them have been restored from little more than the shells of lower
decks.They seem to be the responsibility of local transport society who
have a depot/museum in an old lemonade factory.
There is a second depot/museum on the line which also doubles
as an arts centre/music venue (????) and as they were preparing for a bands that
day I couldn't get inside.
Anyway heres a picture of the local cars.
If anyone is interested in photos of Blackpool trams I'll be
posting a few to eurotrams in about a week.
I am visiting Taiwanese friends next year and many also take
in Australia. Any suggestions about what Australian systems/ museum s can be
visited in about four days.
Best
John
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