Today we have had an early morning delivery at the Museum – LCC 1 returned home from Garmendale Engineering Ltd.’s workshop.
The steel framed body of the tramcar has been with the team at Garmendale Engineering Ltd of Ilkeston, for just over 6 weeks, and has arrived home in a superbly restored state.
If you have been following our blog, and that of Garmendale’s you will have seen that it has been full on non-stop work whilst the tramcar has been away from the Museum. The whole of the top rail of the tramcar has been replaced due to corrosion of various sections. The original curved rail end sections were used as templates for the new steel work, in order to recreate the correct curvature of the rail.
The 21ft long original side panels were removed, with one section being returned to the Museum as it had the original London County Council crest revealed on it. There is quite a noticeable difference between the old panels and the new ones, as the new ones no longer have cut out sections along the bottom. This has actually returned the tramcar to its original appearance, as the cut out sections were a modification made when the tramcar operated in Leeds, in order to allow the bogies under the tramcar to swing out on some of the tight bends of the Leeds track.
Careful shot blasting and cleaning has been undertaken and the tramcar has its first coats of primer now on, turning it from a grey steel colour to a sandy red. The primer is the first layers of paint that will create the base for the final livery to be applied to.
Sections of the frame have been repaired and welded, and the hot riveting, which was demonstrated at the recent open day at Garmendale, has secured the panels onto the body frame.
The team at Garmendale have done a great job restoring the frame of the tramcar, and it is now back over to our Conservation Workshop team, to carry on with the restoration project.
The project is planned to take another two years to complete, so keep checking back for more news as we start to piece this stunning 1930s tramcar back together.
All photographs courtesy of Mike Crabtree from Crich Tramway Village.
