After the end of its successful six month loan spell in the north eats at Beamish, Blackpool & Fleetwood Box 40 is now safely back at the Crich Tramway Village; the first time it has seen Derbyshire for a little under five years. 40 touched down on Crich metals during the afternoon of Friday 6th September after its transport down from Beamish during the day.
As we have reported in the past week 40 ran for the last time at Beamish on Sunday 1st September when it was part of a four tram service at the museum and once the day was over it retired to depot to allow preparations to be made for its departure. This included the removal of lifeguards and the trolley to make the transportation and loading that little bit easier.
With this work completed the tram was then able to be moved with the low loader arriving at Crich during the late afternoon of Friday 6th September. The tram was immediately moved into the workshops where it will be put back together and commissioned for service. It is set to be one of the trams which will run at the Crich 60 event over the weekend of 21st and 22nd September when any tram which can run will do so along with photo opportunities, music, cine film shows and guided tours. A full preview on the event will hopefully follow ahead of the date.
For the record Box 40 was last at Crich between July and October 2014 when it “visited” for the Electric 50 celebrations that year (when two other trams were loaned: Blackpool Balloon 711 and Newcastle 114). It departed back to Blackpool on 29th October 2014. Its loan at Beamish started on 4th March with the tram first running in service on 14th March and as mentioned above ran for the last time on 1st September 2019.