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Tividale Works, Birmingham and Midland Tramways

ian-nl

New Member
My grandfather was carpenter at the Tividale Works of Birmingham & Midland Tramways, some time before 1918. The works closed in 1930, 9 years before the tram service from Birmingham to Dudley was abandoned, but in the fifties the connecting tracks could still be seen in the asphalt of Dudley Road West. The site is nowadays occupied by a housing estate. Although photos of Tividale-built trams are quite common, and the real thing can be admired at the Black Country Museum, I have been unable to find any photos of the works itself. Can anybody help?
Ian
 
Certainly, Ian.
Tividale works was part of the tramway infrastructure taken over with the operation of lines outside the city boundaries to Dudley or Wednesbury, both via west Bromwich, and the line to Dudley via Smethwick and Oldbury, at the time of the local authorities in the areas taking over the private companies' leases, and re-letting them to Birmingham Corporation's Tramway Department.
The department already had its own highly efficient works, in Kyotts Lake Road, Sparkbrook, and so did not need the facilities at Tividale, which had previously built and maintained a large proportion of the Black Country Tramways' network rolling stock.
Latterly Tividale was used for storage of redundant trams, and their eventual breaking up. These photographs are copies of BCT official ones, just before the final tram scrappings done there in the late 30s and the works demolition.
The site became an industrial estate, with its access road named "Tram Way", but that too has gone now and as you say, is replaced by housing.
 
Hallo Lloyd,
Fantastic photos! Even in this run-down state it looks rather impressive. I especially like the views of the clock tower and the shop interior. I wonder if there are still any pictures remaining of the depot in its heyday?
By the way, I remember the depot site being occupied by the foundry of the Revo company in the fifties and sixties. That was before the industrial estate was established.

Thanks for your information!
Ian
 
The "Clock Tower" was probably more likely to have been a water tower, a large tank for holding the water supplies needed by the works - particularly if the Steam tram engines were kept or worked on there. Water mains then were smaller and couldn't supply the amounts that they can nowadays.
 
I think that the views originally uploaded by Lloyd may have been taken at the West Smethwick tram depot, not at Tividale depot which was located a few miles further on the route to Dudley. Today I came across a 1936 aerial view of “Birmingham Corporation Tram Depot on Oldbury Road” and it corresponds with Lloyds ground-level shots.
The aerial view is one of many on the site Britain from Above, which is an amazing collection of more than 40.000 photos taken between 1919 and 1953. See the tram depot on https://www.britainfromabove.org.uk/image/epw050136?search=oldbury&ref=56
By the way, I’m still interested in pictures of Tividale Tram Depot, if anyone can help.
 
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