The Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society have been dealt another devastating blow with the news that they will not be able to reopen the Birkenhead Heritage Tramway in early 2012 after all. They had been led to believe by official from Wirral Council that the situation following the retirement of an electrical engineer had been resolved which would enable them to reopen but it has now been confirmed this is not the case and that they will
have to remain closed for the foreseeable future.
As has been reported previously the tramway was forced to closed at the end of October (except for Santa Specials last Saturday) because of the aforementioned retirement of Wirral Council’s electrical engineer but the MTPS were informed earlier this month that the situation has been resolved and they would be able to resume operation from January 2012. Unfortunately Wirral Council officials are now denying that they ever gave assurances that this was the case and so the MTPS have reluctantly had to agree not to resume operations early next month.
It is believed that Wirral Council are waiting for the much delayed transfer of the tramway to Merseytravel and as such are unwilling to spend money on recruiting another electrical engineer for what could only be a short time. They are also unwilling to let the MTPS operate the tramway without someone in this position.
It is hoped that Merseytravel’s takeover can be concluded as soon as possible and hopes have been raised that this will be the case in the past week with the transfer of trams to Knowsley Business Park for storage on behalf of Merseytravel. But the wait for confirmation of the takeover remains and until such a time as this is so the Birkenhead Heritage Tramway will remain dormant with the MTPS not able to gain any money required to help their current restoration projects (which are still ongoing at Taylor Street depot) get completed.