The East Anglia Transport Museum may have been closed to the public for the past three months or so – although that has now changed with the first opening day of 2025 being Sunday 6th April – but as we have come to expect with all heritage tramways, that doesn’t mean nothing has been going on! As well as general maintenance to make the trams, other vehicles and general infrastructure ready for the public work has been ongoing with a couple of major tram restorations. A few weeks ago we took a look at recent progress on Lowestoft 14 and now we do the same with Glasgow 488.
As many of you will no doubt remember, ever since Glasgow 488 returned to the UK from France (where it had been preserved and on display as a static exhibit at the Paris Transport Museum following its withdrawal back in the 1960s) it has been in two halves. This allowed its easy transport and both parts were initially moved to the Ffestiniog Railway’s Boston Lodge Workshops where work commenced on the lower deck. Little work was undertaken on the upper deck and this was the first part of the tram to make it to Carlton Colville in March 2022 (the upper deck had been moved from Wales to off-site storage in August 2021, before eventually moving to the EATM in November 2023).
Although both decks have been back in the same location for almost 18 months now, they remain separate to allow for more work to take place and to allow more progress to be made on the upper deck this was moved from the West Depot (the new structure) to the main depot and workshop in August 2024. This is allowing it to be completely rebuilt as the restoration continues.
When 488 was originally transported to France, a section of the roof had to be removed to allow it to fit on the ship. This section should soon be receiving attention and extensive work will then be necessary to enable it to form part of the overall upper deck structure again. Restoration work on the rest of the upper deck continues with new panelling and wood structure in place.
The excellent progress being made on the rebuild of the upper deck can be seen here with it sitting on an accommodation truck.
The other end of the upper deck and the original balcony area is still in situ. (Both Photographs by Tim Major, 19th March 2025)
Looking forward to this very much as I don’t think we will see 812 run at Crich again anytime soon.
I’ve a soft spot for GCT 812, for it used to take me to school.
However 488 is a bonnie tram, and the sooner it returns to the rails, the happier we’ll all be. I visited 488 during her ong exile in Paris.