Its now been a week since the Office of Road Rail forced the Crich Tramway Village to close as a result of safety concerns and after initial work it has been confirmed that the museum site will be able to reopen from Wednesday 25th May. However, trams will not run – and will be unable to do so for “some weeks” – and a visit will consist of The Red Lion, Rita’s Tearooms, the shops, Eagle Press, outdoor play area and Woodland Walk and Sculpture Trail only. A reduced admission price will be in place whilst trams can’t run.
As we saw last week the ORR issued a prohibition notice on the museum opening because of safety concerns over the condition of some of the overhead infrastructure. This centered on areas around the depot fan and also by The Red Lion. Since the museum was told to close on Tuesday 17th May further investigations have taken place along with planning for completing the repairs. This has seen work undertaken at The Red Lion making this safer but the work around the depot fan will take longer to complete.
All of this means that as from Wednesday 25th May it will be possible to open the museum site although much of what makes it the Crich Tramway Village will not be accessible. The depot area, Great Exhibition Hall and indoor play area will still remain closed for now. Anyone visiting will still be able to go to The Red Lion, Rita’s Tearooms, the shops, Eagle Press, the outdoor play area and along the Woodland Walk and Sculpture Trail.
Taking this into consideration a reduced admission price will be offered – £10 for adults and seniors and free admission for children. This will be a single day admission ticket and won’t allow re-entry later in the year when presumably trams will be running again. The normal priced tickets are still available to purchase and anyone who holds one of these will be able to use it for re-entry.
Its planned that the Great British Seaside event will still be on (28th May to 4th June) but trams will not be running so it will just consist of the fairground rides and other attractions which are part of this event.
The full statement on the Crich website states: “We are able to open some areas from Wednesday 25th May, but this excludes the exhibition hall, indoor play area and tram depots due to safety concerns around our depot fan. We regret we are unable to run trams and this may be the case for some weeks.”
More updates as they come.
£10 entry fee just to go to the pub and the very expensive tea-rooms?
Erm……. I think I will give that a miss and go to Wetherspoons instead, where £10 will pay for your first four pints!!
Great pity because, under normal circumstances, Crich is an excellent day out; but it is all about trams!
£10. seriously? Should be a £2 donation. Whose going to pay £10 to do what you can do for free literally everywhere else?
I would hope they will be announcimng any event cancellations soon so people can cancel hotels etc.
Generally speaking, an installation has to meet the standards applicable at the time of the installation, and provided it continues to meet those standards, it remains viable. How many houses or electrical installations, for example, meet current standards?
Are the poles actually unsafe, or was the ORR being overly rigid, and not applying common sense? Do the trams meet current standards? Of course they don’t, but they are safe by the standards of their time. This could kill the Museum.
Its a couple of traction poles which have reached the end of their life but the current state is causing concern, ie they could cause a partial overhead collapse due to where they are worn. No concerns about Trams are identified and YES they do meet current standards or how did 40 run on an LRT system?
Its not going to kill the museum, it will be sorted and Trams running again.
No concerns about trams are identified? Wasn’t Leeds 345 damaged recently in some kind of shunting mishap? Does anyone have any information on this?
D A Young. The closeure is nothing to do with the shunt, therefore the statement no concern with trams identified is correct. And no there is no information as it was in depot and therefore none of anyones business except Crich and their internal systems to deal with such matters. Do you think every bump and scrape, split point, derailment etc from every museum gets to the public eye? No, it doesn’t. IF there is a statement to be released about why 345 is unavailable, it will be made.
£10 to visit a tram museum where you cannot actually see any trams? With half term and bank holidays approaching free admission to the accessible areas of the museum would have been a big attraction to families with children (adventure playground, woodland walk, picnic areas etc), with money then being spent on food, drinks, ice creams, souvenirs etc. This would also have promoted goodwill and sympathy for the museum’s plight, encouraging many visitors to return to the museum when it fully reopens.
It will be the ORR “being overly rigid”. Remember that a few years ago they wanted to impose retrospectively increased overhead clearances on electrified lines – 370mm in place of the previously accepted minimum clearance of 200mm, with a reduced minimum of 150mm, bearing directly on the amount of work needed to raise bridges and tunnels, and thus on the cost of a project, putting the whole electrification in doubt. We need to save money on the railways so abolishing the ORR would be good start – replace it with something more like the old HMRI.
If the problem is traction poles, I can’t say I’m overly surprised. I remember about 30 years ago a tram on test got it’s trolley tangled in the overhead and the ensuing ‘ping’ when something finally gave caused a cast iron finail to fall from the top of a pole near the Emporium shop. It smahehed when it hit the ground and was found to be full of water. When a member of museum staff drilled a small hole in the side of the traction pole at about chest height, a jet of rusty water shot out sideways! The pole must have been completely full! It’s a shame they’ve concentrated so much on building playgrounds, sculptures and woodland walks that the actual tramway infrastructure has been allowed to get ito such a poor state.