Beamish announce details of Festival of Transport 2025

There will be a change of transport special events for 2025 at Beamish with the traditional Steam Fair replaced by a nine day Festival of Transport. This new event will take place at the end of May and start of June across the Spring Bank Holiday and school half-term holidays with lots of different themes at various points during that period.

Transport wise Beamish has always been so much more than the trams and whilst there is nothing particularly special planned for the trams during these events they will be running a service around the museum circuit – clockwise only on all days.

Its too early to know whether Gateshead 10’s restoration will have been completed by then – it remains the main focus in the tram depot with a view to getting it ready for 2025 – so just which trams (or indeed how many on each day) will feature can’t be confirmed. But it is expected that trams such as Sunderland 16 and Blackpool 31 will be involved.

One tram which we now know will not be involved in an operational sense will be Lisbon 730. The newest tram acquisition at the museum, 730 arrived at Beamish in January 2024 and has intermittent work undertaken on it to bring it up to the same standards as the rest of the trams. This is now on the backburner as the team are waiting for the delivery of a new inverter for the low voltage electrics – this is a bespoke piece of equipment made for the museum by a firm in Canada. When that does arrive its likely that Newcastle 114 will be a priority in the electrical compound meaning 730 will have to wait and as such doesn’t look like it will be operational in 2025.

But back to the Festival of Transport which will help to celebrate Railway 200 and will be taking place between Saturday 24^th May and Sunday 1^st June. It will have a number of distinct themes – including aspects of the Fares Please! event which has been a new addition to the programme at Beamish in the past couple of years and has seen many buses in operation, including both resident and visitors.

Saturday 24^th to Monday 26^th May

• Reopening of Rowley Station running passenger trains for the first time since 2020 with an as yet announced visiting locomotive
• Waggonway in operation
• Intensive bus service including visiting vehicles (running anti clockwise)
• Trams (running clockwise)

Tuesday 27^th and Wednesday 28^th May

• Rowley Station operating passenger trains
• Waggonway in operation
• Buses in operation (anti clockwise)
• Trams running (clockwise)
• Vintage and veteran cars and motorcycles (clockwise) with displays on High Street outside Redman Park

Thursday 29^th and Friday 30^th May

• Rowley Station operating passenger trains
• Waggonway in operation
• Colliery Railway in operation (Friday 30^th May only – using Coffee Pot No. 1 if its overhaul is completed)
• Buses in operation (anti clockwise)
• Trams running (clockwise)
• Road haulage (clockwise) with displays on High Street at Redman Park

Saturday 31^st May and Sunday 1^st June

• Rowley Station operating passenger trains
• Waggonway operating
• Colliery Railway in operation (Saturday 31^st May only – using Coffee Pot No. 1 if its overhaul is completed)
• Narrow gauge railway running (Glyder, Samson and potentially two visiting narrow gauge locos)
• Trams running (clockwise)
• Intensive bus service including visiting vehicles (anti-clockwise)