“Picture in Time” moves away from Blackpool for the next few weeks and this time the theme is, well there is no theme as anything goes! We’ll be delving back in time to see a random selection of trams at various locations across the UK and we start off in Leicestershire.
Taken at Abbey Park Road Depot in Leicester we have two photos below of two trams which were donated to the City of Leicester by their twinned town Krefeld in Germany. The two trams were motor 412 and trailer 41 and they were originally intended to be used on a proposed tramway which was to be built in Abbey Park. But, as with so many plans for this type, that was not to be progressed any further and the two trams ended up in limbo. Outside storage beckoned for many years with the two having periods at the Great Central Railway and Great Central Railway North. The motor (412) is now at the North East Land Sea Air and Land Museum in Sunderland (part of the North East Electrical Traction Trust collection).
412 sits on tarmac outside the bus depot. This can’t have been long after it arrived in the UK and the tram looks in good condition still here.
And in the second photo we take a look at 41. Again it is sitting directly on the tarmac and we also see the motor in the distance.
Both Photographs by Bob Hodges, 18th May 1989
Is 41 the trailer still around or has it been scrapped?
They were donated to Leicester in 1981. I saw them inside the depot in 1982 so by the time Bob saw them they must have fallen out of favour and been put outside. The depot was demolished in 2007. As for the trailer I too would like to know what happened to it.