Five weeks to the day after it arrived, it’s gone again. The beautiful (and now beautifully mechanically restored) LCC1 Bluebird tram has left the Garmendale Works to return to Crich Tramway Village.
When she arrived on 18th May, the bodywork was rotten and some of the chassis members were looking a little weak and sorry for themselves.
Our work included a full strip down with panel removal, to bare metal, lots of shot-blasting to tidy to the metalwork and then building it back up from scratch with hot riveting and new panels throughout. We then prepped it for paint and applied coats of Red Oxide Primer.
It’s only when you compare pictures of the tram when it arrived to when it left, that you see how far it came in its relatively short time with us.
And there was even a small improvement along the way. One of the original uprights was not even attached to the chassis and only held in place by the bodywork. So after some consultation to ensure the restoration was to ‘as it was built standard’ it was agreed that this had been an oversight by the original builders, rather than a deliberate decision and it was welded into place.
You’ll see from the images that the bodywork is as smooth as can be, which is some feat as the sides are made up from single pieces of sheet steel that are 21ft long and attached to all five uprights.
We are very sad to see it go but it’s now on its way to a really detailed restoration by the brilliant team at Crich and we can’t wait to see it back up and running. Bye Bye Bluebird.
So, what’s next?