Only two days to go now until our TMS60 event on Saturday 19th September.
As we’ve mentioned one of the stars of the event will be recently overhauled Liverpool ‘Liner’ 869 which will make a welcome return to operating at the Museum.
The eagle eyed among our regular visitors, might have noticed that over the last few months, 869 has been spotted out on the Museum’s main track, where it was undertaking test runs to make sure everything was fit and healthy as a result of its recent overhaul.
A significant amount of attention has been given to the wheelsets on the tramcar, including the manufacturing of four new axles (see our earlier blog articles for more information about this part of the overhaul and picture below) an overhaul of the Electropneumatic control gear that the tramcar utilises, as well as all the upholstery on the seats having been renewed.
A number of the seats on the tramcar had started to wear and were really looking a little sorry for themselves. Whilst we knew what the seats were supposed to be covered with originally, we couldn’t source the material.
To give us a better idea of what we should be looking at for the seating, the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society, very kindly loaned us one of their original seats from Liverpool Baby Grand 245, and with the help of that we were able to work with our upholstery contractor to find the closest match.
Here is a sneak peak of the beautiful new seats on the tramcar, which we hope lots of you will enjoy riding on Saturday.
We are really looking forward to 869 being back in service, and think it will definitely be one of the highlights of our TMS60 event.
The launch of Liverpool 869 is due to take place at 11.00am on Saturday from the depot fan, and the tramcar will then lead a parade of 1930s tramcars.
We also want to say a massive congratulations to the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society (MTPS) for the successful restoration of Baby Grand 245. Last weekend saw the much anticipated launch of this beautiful tramcar, and it is a real testament to the hardwork of the MTPS over the last few years to get this tramcar operational again.
For more information about our TMS60 event please have a look at our events page here.
