{"id":11192,"date":"2015-05-12T19:17:39","date_gmt":"2015-05-12T19:17:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=11192"},"modified":"2015-05-12T19:17:39","modified_gmt":"2015-05-12T19:17:39","slug":"southampton-45-is-not-a-horse-tram","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=11192","title":{"rendered":"Southampton 45 is not a horse tram!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Southampton 45 <\/strong>has become the latest tramcar from the National collection to be moved into the Exhibition Hall at Crich Tramway Village, following its retirement from active duties late last year. The tram has moved into a space vacated by the musuem’s operating horse tram Sheffield 15 <\/strong>which is set to carry its first passengers of the year on Wednesday 13th May, ahead of an increased number of running days during 2015.<\/p>\n

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In 2010, the Exhibition Hall was revamped with the trams inside arranged in a chronological order to illustrate the evolution of tramcar design over a 150 year period. Although the trams were not placed in age order, the idea was to show how designs developed over the years and as such the occupants were positioned accordingly, effectively creating a timeline of tramway history and a much improved display for visitors. For the following five years, efforts were always made to keep trams in appropriate positions to fit in with this display, with newer additions such as Blackpool & Fleetwood 2 <\/strong>and Edinburgh 35 <\/strong>placed correctly. Even temporary exhibits such as Newcastle 102 <\/strong>and Liverpool 869 <\/strong>which have graced the building in the last few years have always been placed correctly so as not to spoil the effect. Unfortunately however, that has now changed as Southampton 45 <\/strong>has been dumped in the space that had been occupied by Sheffield 15<\/strong>\u00a0and is now sandwiched between various horse cars. This of course means that the time line now shows 45 <\/strong>during the horse tram era, and before the introduction of steam trams and early electric cars such as the Blackpool conduit cars, which were of course the very first electric street trams to run in this country. This is also quite a change in the fortunes of the tram which is credited as having kick-started the UK tram preservation movement, and has always been considered as one of the star cars of the Crich fleet.<\/p>\n

Not for the first time, this criticism might seem trivial to some, but as an accredited museum which has been designated as having an outstanding collection of great national importance, it has been stated that the museum has a serious role to play in educating visitors about its exhibits and that this should be put ahead of commercial aims. The inappropriate placing of 45 <\/strong>in an otherwise excellent display of trams in an order reflecting the history of tramcar designs could well misinform visitors, some of whom may well go away thinking that trams of this type ran alongside horse drawn vehicles during the 1870s, which is clearly untrue. It could be argued that most visitors will not pay much attention or not even care about such details, but this sort of apathy is the exact sort of attitude that accredited museums are supposed to avoid. It is also probably relevant to point out that a sizeable grant was provided to create this chronological exhibition, which has now been spoiled simply by putting a tram in the wrong place – something which a bit of shunting could have resolved.<\/p>\n

Hopefully Southampton 45<\/strong>‘s positioning will only be temporary and the tram will either be moved to a more suitable part of the Exhibition Hall or returned to the main depots for continued storage as soon as possible. It has not been clarified what work it actually requires before it can be returned to service, but a major overhaul is thought to be required and so hopefully it will not stay put until this work can be carried out.<\/p>\n

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Seen in happier times, Southampton 45 is pictured at Glory Mine on its final day of service before being withdrawn and transferred to the Exhibition Hall. (Photo by Andrew Waddington)<\/p><\/div>\n

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Southampton 45 has become the latest tramcar from the National collection to be moved into the Exhibition Hall at Crich Tramway Village, following its retirement from active duties late last year. The tram has moved into a space vacated by … 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":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192"}],"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=11192"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11195,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11192\/revisions\/11195"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}