Although the tramway remains closed ahead of the completion of repairs to the substation, the Heaton Park Tramway have been running a series of special events on selected dates with the latest of these taking place on Sunday 30th August. The theme of this open day was a celebration of 125 years of electric trams in Stockport – and it featured none other than the sole surviving electric tram from Stockport: no. 5.
The anniversary of the start of electric tram operation in Stockport was 26th August and so the Sunday of the event was the closest to that date to allow the celebrations to take place. 5 was one of a batch of 10 trams built by Dick, Kerr for the opening of the tramway and of course played a central role in Heaton Park’s celebrations.
As we saw a few weeks ago 5 was moved down from Lakeside Depot to Middleton Road which enabled it to be displayed outside with a number of visiting buses which also once ran in Stockport. This included one of the direct replacements for the trams when the last routes were closed in 1951 (the last traditional trams to run in Greater Manchester – until Heaton Park opened in 1980 of course!).
Manchester 765 was also displayed outside during the event.
There were also a series of heritage bus used to both link the tramway with the Greater Manchester Museum of Transport as well as tours of local tram routes in Middleton and Blackley.
And the latest update from the Heaton Park Tramway on their planned reopening has been given on Facebook: “We’re as keen as everyone to see them back out on the line, and works are progressing well ‘behind the scenes’ on our replacement electrical substation. Whilst we don’t have an exact date for our tram services restarting just yet, our volunteers are maintaining our tramcars and tramway to ensure that they are “ready to roll” once our new power supply is commissioned.”
As Stockport 5 is posed for photos it comes across three buses. They are from the left Stockport Corporation 91 (a 1969 Leyland Titan PD3/14), Stockport Corporation 34 (a 1965 Leyland Titan PD2/40) and Stockport Corporation 321 (a 1951 Crossley DD42/7 – one of the buses which replaced the trams).
Manchester 765 outside Middleton Road Depot.
Another view of 765. Stockport 5 can just be seen in the distance.
And one final image of 5 out in the bank holiday weekend sunshine. (All Photographs by Steven Hughes, 30th August 2026)