InTramCities with Gordon Stewart
Summerlee Museum of Scottish Industrial Life, Coatbridge, United Kingdom : 17th April, 2017
The
museum is located at Coatbridge, in the industrial heartland of
Scotland in an area whose development was based on the coal and steel
industries. It was established on the site of a former ironworks,
one of the largest in the country in its time, which operated from 1836
until 1926. Whilst the foundations of some of the original furnaces
remain open for viewing, the bulk of the museum features mechanical and
engineering exhibits relating to the area's industrial history and also
tells the story of its people who grew up in an area dominated by these
industries.
It also features a short stretch of tramway which
offers rides for visitors to the museum. Interestingly, it features old
continental European rolling stock, The line opened in 1988 over a 300
metre stretch of track before it was extended. Its first tram was
ex-Bruxelles 9062 of 1959 which was scrapped in 2004 after being
damaged by vandals. Ex-Graz 225 of 1949 was the other original tram but
it was sold in 2010. In the current fleet are trams from Glasgow and an
open-topped double decker from the local Lanarkshire Tramways Company
dating from 1908.
In service on April 17th 2017 was
ex-Dusseldorf 392 of 1951 which came to Summerlee in 1999 and has been
modified for disabled access.
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