Increased horse power for Crich

Another attempt to provide additional interest to visitors to Crich Tramway Village on non-event days for 2015, will see a horse car service operate on a number of dates this year. This will utilise the 1874-built Sheffield 15, the first tram to have carried passengers at the museum, which is due to operate on six days during the peak summer season.

Oddly, all six of the confirmed horse tram running days are weekdays. The dates announced are: Wednesday 13th May,Tuesday 19th May, Wednesday 15th July, Tuesday 18th August, Thursday 20th August and Wednesday 16th September. The July date co-incides with a week-long event based on the First World War but the others fall on normal open days so as to offer additional interest and encourage more people to visit the museum. It is hoped that this venture will be worthwhile as the cost of hiring a horse for the day is known to be quite high, making the decision to do so midweek six times in a single year quite surprising.

It is also a disapointment that the museum continues to give potential visitors the impression that Sheffield 15 is the only horse tram in the national collection when the museum is actually home to a superb collection of horse cars. There is also seemingly no chance of Leeds 107 running at Crich this year – despite arriving on site in August 2013 following an extensive and costly restoration undertaken by members of the Leeds Transport Historical Society with support from the Crich workshop. Despite an unfortunate accident on its only weekend of operation at the Middleton Railway in 2013, the continued non-use of this tram is rather a shame and something that hopefully will be addressed sooner rather than later, so as to reverse the rather odd situation that the National Tramway Museum has never operated a double-deck horse tram in public service.

As well as the advertised horse tram days, Crich will be operating its decorated World War One recruiting car – Chestefield 7 – on every Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday (subject to availability) from 18th April to 29th September, certain special events excepted. This should lead to a significant increase in use for the tram which did not run as much as usual in 2014, and it is pleasing that those who wish to see it in service in its special temporary guise will have plenty of opportunities to do so. This also quashes the myth that it is not possible to advertise the use of particular trams on set dates – hopefully another positive step towards making Crich an even more attractive venue for a day out to the general public and tram enthusiasts alike.