The Seaton Tramway only have a short period in the year without any trams running and whilst it may seem that is downtime for the staff it is very much busy with various maintenance tasks taking place. This includes both the infrastructure and the trams.
Trams last ran on 3rd January 2023 and since then there has been a hive of activity out on the tramway, including work taking place on three bridges. Bobsworth Bridge – the original terminus when the line first opened in 1970 – still includes some original railway infrastructure such as the beams and girders. To allow the continued safe operation of the tramway contractors have been employed and they will initially be blasting the current beams. They’re then move on to installing new bridge girders and coating the entire bridge. Finally it will be painted. This work is due to take 6-8 weeks to be completed.
Two other bridges are also seeing attention. Tye Lane North and East Devon Bridge are seeing general maintenance which includes some new fencing and paint along with strengthening work.
Other work taking place out on the tramway has seen some track realignment in the area north of Colyford between Tye Lane North and East Devon Bridge. With the line here on a gradient, over time the track has slipped down hill and whilst this does not notice immediately, over time this movement adds up. As a result the track is now being realigned back to its original position with new sleepers also added.
With the track now being in a realigned formation at Tye Lane Loop no longer ran directly into the former layout. This led to further track relaying to ensure that the tracks met up. Next time you’re on the tramway you may notice that it now looks slightly different.
On the tram front and 12 has been in the workshops with volunteers at the tramway restoring and painting the seating. Each seat has been removed, sanded, primed and repainted ahead of it being reinstalled to allow the tram to run in service once again in the 2023 season.
- Trams start running again on Saturday 11th February and then run daily until Sunday 19th February, weekends until 19th March and then from 25th March its every day until the end of October. More details at https://www.tram.co.uk/calendar.