Glasgow 488 restoration update

Not a lot has been written about the progress on the restoration of tramcar Glasgow 488 at the Boston Lodge railway works in Wales, for eventual operation at the East Anglia Transport Museum, on this website for some time – mainly because work had slowed down considerably. However, with the lower deck largely complete, the top deck of the Glasgow ‘Standard’ car has now appeared in their body shop for stripping.

Currently being worked on as time allows between other more urgent jobs, the upper deck has had a number of panels and windows removed, along with the side body mouldings. The opening window units have also had their remaining paint scraped off, and paint is being stripped from the interior including the ornate ceiling – no easy task! Finally, yet more paint has been removed from the ventilator covers which will soon be ready for repainting.

Meanwhile at East Anglia, 488‘s truck is also under attention and it is pleasing to report that only one of the numerous bolts has had to be discarded, in spite of many years of accumulated rust which took a great many hours to assess! One axle has been removed for examination and appears to be in remarkably good condition, as do the tyres which are in high profile and seem to have hardly been used. Some thought had been given to exchanging the axles on this truck with those from the museum’s ex-Glasgow accomodation truck, but this proved to be incompatable and so these positive findings have come as a great relief. It has, however, been realised that one of 488‘s axle boxes differs from the other three! The Tramway Museum Society have kindly offered to help here by checking if they have a suitable spare amongst their veritable treasure trove of Glasgow tram parts. This is another great example of the various different preservation groups helping each other, and hopefully this will be another step towards getting this remarkable survivor up and running again in the not too distant future.

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