In this article we go to the Science Museum’s store at Wroughton near Swindon in Wiltshire which has been home to Glasgow Standard Car 585 for a quarter of a century, although it was recently moved around the site.
The Glasgow Standard Car probably needs little introduction to many readers of this website, with several examples in preservation, including operational at Crich, under restoration at Carlton Colville and on display at the Riverside Museum in Glasgow. 585 was built in 1901 and is a similar type to both the East Anglia Transport Museum’s 488 and Crich’s. 812.
It had originally been intended that 585 would head to Middleton in Leeds where there were plans for a tramway museum but as history will tell us this ended with many of the trams there suffering vandalism and then scrapping. Instead 585 was presented to the Science Museum and would be moved to the main site at Kensington in London during 1962. It remained in London until 2000 when a re-jig of the museum saw it moved away to their storage site at Wroughton.
And there is has remained ever since, albeit it was moved last year as they reorganised the site. A YouTube video of this move is available at https://youtu.be/SsbF6ZEEWMc?si=n-0EHkejp7NXW44s.
Wroughton offers pre-bookable guided tours (although they are all currently sold out) and whilst 585 is not directly part of these it was possible for Ken Jones to catch a glimpse of the tram during his tour in August 2025.
Sitting on a short section of track this is how Glasgow 585 looks today. It retains the blue route livery. (Photograph by Ken Jones, 15th August 2025)