On 14th April 1995 a unique tramway started operation – the Birkenhead Heritage Tramway. The tramway was to be the first – and to date only – new permanent heritage tramway to open outside of a Museum and now 20 years later the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society are preparing to celebrate the occasion with a special event taking place on Saturday 18th April 2015.
The Birkenhead Heritage Tramway was opened in three phases: Woodside to Pacific Road, Pacific Road to Egerton Bridge and Egerton Bridge to Taylor Street. There have been two depots available to house trams with the main home now being the Taylor Street home of the Wirral Transport Museum where the majority of trams can now be found. But there is also Pacific Road which has been the home to various trams over the years.
When the tramway originally started running there were just two trams available namely the two replica Hong Kong trams 69 and 70 but as the years have passed Birkenhead 20, Liverpool 762, Wallasey 78 and Lisbon 730 have joined the operating pool with Liverpool 245 set to become the seventh tram to carry passengers later this year. It was originally planned that a special event would be held on Tuesday 14th April to celebrate 20 years of operation with all six trams in service at some point during the afternoon but due to “unforeseen” circumstances this event has now been moved to Saturday 18th April. It may be on a different date but it is still planned that up to six trams will be in service during the afternoon (normal operating hours of 1300-1700 are expected on this day).
And if you can’t make it to Birkenhead on this date it is planned that there will be a further celebration on Saturday 20th June. All trams will be out during the day and each tram will be run in the order they came on the tramway (70, 69, 20, 762, 78 and 730).
2015 should be an exciting year in Birkenhead as should also see the launch into service of long-term restoration project Liverpool 245 which was delayed from last year. This will bring the fleet up to seven operational electrical trams – not bad going considering when the tramway opened in 1995 there were only two.