London County Council 1 – commonly known as Bluebird amongst enthusiasts – has had to be withdrawn from service after issues discovered during its commissioning for the 2025 season at the Crich Tramway. The tram, which only entered service after a 10-year restoration last September, was in the process of being commissioned when unusual electrical readings from the motors were discovered leading to the decision.
These unusual readings had not been seen any previous tests, but as safety remains the museum’s number one priority the Workshop team made the difficult decision to halt the commissioning of the tram to allow further investigation. This will include the complex task of removing the motors to allow further testing by specialists to establish the root cause. Workshop space is currently being identified to allow this to happen as soon as possible.
In a statement, Crich Tramway Village said: “We will keep you updated on progress as we look to establish the best way forwards and how we plan to get this iconic and unique engineering masterpiece back into service. Whilst this is a setback for those who have been involved in this restoration for many years, and for everyone who wants to see LCC1 running again, the Tramway Museum will continue to offer our usual tram service with our other popular trams and will continue to welcome everyone along for a great day out.”
Although Bluebird will not be commissioned for service at the present time there are plenty of trams from the extension national collection which will be. It is planned that 16 passenger trams will be commissioned alongside various engineering vehicles.
The planned operating fleet (subject to the usual caveats of any issues being found during the season) will be (* indicates has already run this year):
Chesterfield 7 *
Glasgow 22 *
Blackpool “Standard” 40 *
Sheffield 74 *
Newcastle 102
London County Council 106
Blackpool 166
Blackpool 167
Blackpool 236
Oporto 273
Metropolitan Electric Tramways 331
Leeds 345
Leeds 399 *
Sheffield 510
Blackpool 630 *
Liverpool 869
London Transport 1622
Aside from the absence of LCC 1, possibly the most notable omission from the list provided to us is Leeds 180 although it has been replaced by fellow Leeds car 345 which had entered the Workshop late last year for attention.
Works cars to be available this year include Blackpool Electric Locomotive, Cardiff 131, Croydon Tramlink 058+061 and GMJ.
That’s an unexpected blow! That said, an operational fleet of (hopefully) 16 trams in a year is still something to be very proud of, and with a lot of recent investment in the tramway infrastructure and visitor facilities at Crich, hopefully 2025 will be a good year for the museum.
I understand that many of the running fleet are having new controller arc chutes fitted as part of the commissioning process, which has restricted the available pool of cars so far this year, but its good to see a list of what is planned to be available and hopefully all goes to plan from here on. It may not be perfect, but with so little to celebrate right now in terms of UK tram preservation, Crich deserve our support and understanding.
Disappointing news about LCC 1 but hopefully it’s nothing that will take too long to fix.
Hopefully Leeds 180 isn’t out for too long either as that is slightly surprising. Does anyone know what has happened to it?
Good news about Leeds 345 though
Leeds 180 is having a rest this year as part of the controller overhaul program. Hopefully back next year.
Thank you and that’s good to hear.
What is the controller overhaul programme?
What a surprise Box 40 is laid off again. Presumably 159 still in disgrace.
I’d imagine with the need to prioritise the controller work on several of the operating fleet, a few other outstanding jobs have had to be pushed back accordingly.
I love Box 40 but if it doesn’t run again for the foreseeable future then I’ll accept that, it is looking rather tired and there seems little point in doing work on it if its likely to need a major overhaul before long. That said, if the workshop team consider it to be worthwhile, then I’ll welcome it back into service gladly!