When the Stagecoach era of operation on the South Yorkshire Supertram network came to an end, a question on the lips of at least a few people was “what will happen to Supertram Man?”! And now there is an answer to that question as it is one of many items which have recently been donated to the National Tramway Museum at Crich.
For those of you reading this who are thinking “who or what is Supertram Man?”, it was a character created by Stagecoach encouraging safety around trams as well as helping with local charity collections.
With the South Yorkshire Mayoral Combined Authority having decided not to renew Stagecoach’s contract to operate the Supertram network from 21st March 2024, Supertram Man became redundant but the costume has now been donated to Crich along with other memorabilia, uniform and ticket machines.
Kate Watts, Curator at Crich, said: “We’re delighted to welcome Supertram Man to our collection! We’re keen to preserve material relating to our current tramway systems, as they’re an important part of the story of British tramways and will become historic items for future generations”.
Supertram Man introduces himself to Curator, Kate Watts. They are standing on the platform of an earlier piece of Sheffield tram history – horse car 15.
Supertram Man becomes acquainted with some more trams, both of these are also from Yorkshire but West Yorkshire rather than South as they are Leeds pair 399 and 180. (Both Photographs courtesy of Crich Tramway Village)
It’s funny really… I live about 15 minutes from the Halfway terminus of Supertram and visit Sheffield at least once a week. I travelled on all the milestone trams including the first passenger departure form Meadowhall and more recently the first tram-train. But until reading this post I’d never even heard of ‘Supertram Man’. I guess it shows how well that bit of brilliant marketing worked!