Some good news has been received from the Wirral with an announcement that the Birkenhead Heritage Tramway is to reopen from Saturday 7th January 2012. As you may remember the tramway had been forced to close (with the exception of Santa Specials on Saturday 17th December) from the end of October because of the retirement of the Council’s electrical engineer who was not being replaced. Thankfully this staffing issue has now been resolved and the tramway is free to open again from the first Saturday in January.
The Birkenhead Heritage Tramway will return to its usual Saturday and Sunday operation between 1300 and 1600 from 7th January with the two Hong Kong built tramcars 69 and 70 being the main trams in use (mainly because they have heaters!)
This will mark the end of a difficult period for the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society who will have lost a significant amount of revenue over the past couple of months with no trams being able to operate. The group are currently involved in the restoration of two tramcars at the Taylor Street Depot: Warrington 2 and Liverpool 245 and the
reopening of the tramway will hopefully enable them to further fund the completion of these restorations.
Hopefully this good news will soon be followed by an announcement that the heavily protracted Merseytravel takeover of the heritage tramway (and potential expansion) is going ahead which will really secure the future of the tramway.