{"id":10344,"date":"2015-02-17T19:30:33","date_gmt":"2015-02-17T19:30:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10344"},"modified":"2015-02-17T19:32:07","modified_gmt":"2015-02-17T19:32:07","slug":"mtps-members-to-decide-warrington-2s-future","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10344","title":{"rendered":"MTPS members to decide Warrington 2’s future"},"content":{"rendered":"

Members of the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society are set to be given a unique opportunity to decide on the future for one of the Society’s collection of vintage tramcars. The derelict lower deck of Warrington 2 <\/strong>was acquired by the MTPS from the St Helens Transport Museum several years ago, and since then a significant amount of work has been undertaken to restore the tram to operational condition. However, the car has sat untouched for the last two years for a number of reasons, and now an important decision needs to be made regarding its future preservation.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Whilst work on the restoration of Warrington 2 <\/strong>was underway, a discovery was made relating to the tram’s working life. When the car was purchased it had been decided to restore it as an open balcony double decker, which would represent a type of tram not currently in the MTPS fleet as the only other open balcony car at Birkenhead, Wallasey 78<\/strong>, features the unusual ‘Bellamy’ top cover with no roof over the balconies. However, it was subsequently realised that 2 <\/strong>had never actually operated in this guise, having been built as an open topper and then being rebuilt, becoming fully enclosed. A decision was therefore made by the MTPS Board that the tram should be restored in its final enclosed condition, however this proved controversial with some of the volunteer workers at Birkenhead reluctant to work on a tram which they considered a duplicate of the other enclosed cars based at the tramway. This lead to the project stalling and now the incomplete tram sits idle inside the Taylor Street museum building awaiting completion of its rebuild.<\/p>\n

It has now been decided to hold a special emergency meeting next month, which the entire MTPS membership are invited to attend. All members will be given the opportunity to vote on whether Warrington 2 <\/strong>should ultimately be presented in its final fully enclosed condition (as decided by the Board), or whether it should be restored with open balconies to fill a gap in the collection, overturning the previous decision made. Although this wouldn’t be authentic for this vehicle, others like it did run in this condition for some years and this would therefore potentially justify such a decision. However, this meeting will not\u00a0necessarily\u00a0guarantee an upturn in the Warrington car’s fortunes: if the decision made does not appease the working members then the tram may remain untouched, and could even potentially be moved to outside storage. Offering it to another preservation group is also an option which could be considered if this is felt to be in the best interests of the tram, as some volunteers have already refused to continue working on the car if it has to be preserved in fully enclosed form.<\/p>\n

Another potential issue could arise as the position currently occupied by 2<\/strong>, will soon need to be vacated. As the tracks inside the Taylor Street depot and workshop building are all fully occupied, this leaves the MTPS facing the problem of where to house the tram. Although it is understood that Liverpool horse car 43 <\/strong>will be allowed to remain in the Pacific Road complex for static display as part of a new retail development, it may not be possible to store any other trams there for much longer. This has also ended all hope of Blackpool Brush Railcoach 626 <\/strong>ever operating in passenger service at Birkenhead; due to concerns about a shortage of depot space, the MTPS have felt unable to accept the tram into their collection, although it is believed that another organisation has shown interest in offering it a home. This cannot, however, be confirmed until more is known, at which time it will be reported on this website.<\/p>\n

Whatever the future holds for Warrington 2<\/strong>, the decision to allow MTPS members to decide on its future is a very welcome move and hopefully, even if the decision is not universally agreed with, the way it has been made will be approved by all and enable the last surviving Warrington tram to run again before too long.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Members of the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society are set to be given a unique opportunity to decide on the future for one of the Society’s collection of vintage tramcars. The derelict lower deck of Warrington 2 was acquired by the … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[5],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10344"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10344"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10344\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10346,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10344\/revisions\/10346"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10344"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10344"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10344"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}