At the East Anglia Transport Museum near Lowestoft, Amsterdam 474 has been out of service for some time awaiting rectification of mechanical defects, primarily affecting its motor. However, the tram is far from forgotten and in fact, recent thoughts have been turned towards its long-term future, and the possibility of fitting a wheelchair lift to offer improved access to disabled visitors so that they can enjoy a vintage tram ride.
Amsterdam 474 has traditionally been used by the museum as an ‘access tram’ of sorts due to its wide end platforms, which provide sufficient space for a wheelchair. However, getting wheelchairs onto the tram has been more challenging, with a portable ramp previously used. However, one of the team of volunteers who work on the small tram fleet at East Anglia has recently obtained a hydraulic wheelchair lift, and is investigating how best to adapt this in order to fulfill 474‘s potential as a fully accessible tramcar. This would create a very useful asset for the museum, similar to the adapted Berlin car at Crich, making EATM only the second UK museum with a tram fitted with a wheelchair lift.
For the moment, 474 remains stored out of service awaiting repair, but it is anticipated that once Lowestoft 14 is mounted on its own truck, the car will be lifted for assessment so that the process of getting it fit for service again can finally get underway. Unfortunately, work on 14 has been delayed considerably because the truck has required a great deal of further attention since being supposedly completed by a contractor, and this has also had a knock-on effect on the completion of Glasgow 488‘s restoration, still being undertaken in Wales. The spare truck on which 14 is currently mounted needs to be extracted as it is likely to come in useful with the Glasgow car’s reconstruction, as once 488‘s own truck arrives on site it is planned to strip the accomodation truck and combine the best parts of both in the finished product. All of this may sound rather complicated, but hopefully the various arrangements will all work out well and the results should see a much improved situation for the resident fleet of trams for many years to come.