• Welcome to this forum . We are a worldwide group with a common interest in Birmingham and its history. While here, please follow a few simple rules. We ask that you respect other members, thank those who have helped you and please keep your contributions on-topic with the thread.

    We do hope you enjoy your visit. BHF Admin Team

Birmingham on Sea

I know what you mean, Shelvoke & Drewry Freighters. Most were dustcarts, their miniature wheels made them ideal 'low-loaders' and speed wasn't that important. A few became buses or toastracks, and a replica has been built at Amberley museum (on an ex-dustcart chassis) of one which used to run in that area. Here's a pic of it.
The controls were two handles, one was accelerator and brake, the other was for steering, Get it wrong at your peril!
The vehicle in your photo is a Vulcan, re-engined with a Bedford engine (and as you can see, radiator!) post-war. One of these was dumped in a field as a TT race officials hut some years ago, I don't know if it survived into preservation or not.
 
No, sadly I've not got to Amberley yet - although the family history starts all around the area. I've promised myself a week or two down there (Brighton) when funds permit.
However I have found a picture of one of the Crosville (ex- Brooks Bros "White Rose" fleet) S&D Freighters.
 
Another good one Lloyd but older I think than the ones I remember, which I'm sure had very rounded back ends similar to the Duple coaches of the time and a full front with a Bedford grille the same as in Douglas.
Mike

I'm putting on one more WSM Toastrack because I like the notice on the roofboard "Sea Always in at the Old Pier" which has to be a knock at the then new Grand Pier. Thought it might be nice to include a ticket you would have got on this car.
 
Thank you Alf, you have cracked it - that is exactly the Toastrack I remember but it had a Bedford grille. The one I saw was at Rhyl.
Regarding the Great Orme trams I think they look better now than the plain blue they used to be. Thanks again for finding such brilliant info,
Mike
 
Looks that way Alf, but they must have made their money on them through the summer because like the open top buses they were laid up all through the winter. In summer at Weston if it rained and not all their Toastracks were out, they would send in open top double deck trams in exchange for a Toastrack. It must have been a bit hazardous for the conductor on the outside of one moving along a wet running board to collect his fares and awkward if the passengers pulled down the side blinds as well. I don't think Health & Safety would allow it these days!
Mike
 
In our Greatgrandparents younger days many would have neither the time off or the money to get to WSM for a day let alone a holiday. Thats when a Bank Holiday day out to "Birmingham on Sea" completely without the sea was a trip to the Lickeys on the tram or for the slightly better off a trip to Kinver, again by tram. To Kinver must have been quite an adventure, being quite a long way off, involving more than one tram to get there. My very last look at a Toastrack tram is the Kinver one referred to by Lloyd earlier on. What wonderful change it must have been to be riding on one of these through the open countryside in the fresh air after leaving Colmore Row in Brum and riding out through the smokey factory areas,through the industrial landscape of the Black Country and the glass kilns of Stourbridge. It must have been truly worth the effort in those days. Trips to WSM would come in their later years.
 
Thanks. Mike for the picture of the Kinver tram. These wonderful vehicle travelled all round the Black Country to take parties to Kinver. Not the seaside, but a short stretch was nrxt to the canal bank. The line closed in 1930, and I first got there 19 years later when you could still see where the the single track left the road and curved through fields to reach the canal. There was a small depot near the terminus, and you could still see the footings and some other little reminders, while at the side of the road nearer to Stourbridge you could still see the original wooden overhead poles supporting the modest street lighting, with an overhead feeder slung between them tramway style.
Some of the cars were licensed to enter Birmingham along the Dudley Road, and they ran a summer weekend and bank holiday service terminating on the stub track in Lionel Street where the Express at Holiday Inn is today. I looked very hard in the road surfacing when we stayed there two months ago for traces of the old tram track, but it's all gone now.
There were also stories of a tram chartered to run via Ladywood, Five Ways and Navigation Street to pick up a party in Moseley or Kings Heath, but no evidence to support the story.
Peter
 
That's interesting about them working through to Birmingham, Peter, I always thought you had to go to Stourbidge or Amblecote and change for the Kinver cars.
The late Ray Coxon used to tell of a charter from Cotteridge Church (next to the depot) to Kinver, and the convoluted way the car had to transverse the city because there were no through lines, in and out via several main roads until they could access the Dudley Road line. A photo of one of the Kinver cars (especially the long bogie ones) inside the city boundary would be ideal proof!
 
Double deckers were prohibited from the Kinver line, mike, and much of it beyond Stourton was laid with lightweight rail which wouldn't be up to the weight of a laden decker. When the prohibition was applied at the original pre-opening inspection, older double deck cars from the Black Country tramways were converted to single deck to operate the line.
The Corporation did have a few single deck passenger cars for a while, though...

Amazingly, the Kinver Light Railway depot survives - not in its original location, but as a barn on a nearby farm. It was sold, dismantled and moved after the line closed.
 
Thanks for that Lloyd - thats laid to rest an urban myth but perhaps BCT staff set out in their own trams to be met somewhere to transfer to the Kinver cars and it got changed in the telling.
Mike
 
Some more wonderful photos Dave and Mike what year did they remove that colonnade along the the wall:)Mossy
 
Hi Mossy, The collonade sadly was a victim of the 1981 storm (posting #263). Any idea when the footbridge from the market over to the beach was dismantled please?
Mike
 
This is a fantastic carnival, we have the same one at Burnham usually a few days before the Weston one, it takes over two hours to pass by,, some of the floats are 100 foot long with a generator on the back, well worth seeing.
 
WSM and now Burnham on Sea doing well this year - it was in the Evening Mail. Look out John, you won't get a seat in the tearooms the way it's going!
Now for GGs for Jean if she's about. You've got to look hard to see the donkeys this view.
 
The Burnham on Sea carnival is November 10th. this year, its the same carnival as at Weston of course, they do different towns on different evenings, starting in Bridgewater, well worth a visit, theres over 100 floats.
 
Dave and John,
These carnival floats are unbelieveable. Never managed to see the carnival yet so these pics are a treat. Would it be less crowded to watch it at Burnham than WSM?
Mike
 
Hi. Mike. It really is a fantastic carnival, difficult to describe, if you go on the Burnham on Sea website theres quite a bit about it, its on Nov.10 in Burnham starts at 7 30, lasts over 2 hours and it is less crowded here than Weston, but still busy. hope to be going again this year, never know may see you there. John
 
From brilliant pics of the recent past back to the to the Grand Pier and a c.1933 view of it newly rebuilt after the 1930 fire. 'Now Open' says the sign over the entrance. Other signs rightly promise 'Happiness, Mirth and Enjoyment' as well as "Electric Speed Boats". I never saw those but remember the heavy metal electric bumper cars they had in the 1940's and 50's.
The Post Card artist has been at work on this one as well, the tram colour is actually right but the car overtaking the tram has been flashed over with the same colour as well!
There is an interesting twist to this card - it was posted from Nuneaton to Henley in Arden on 4-7-1966. (I thought at first it had taken 33 years to arrive up from WSM, which wouldn't have been any great surprise really - sorry Royal Mail, only joking.).
 
In the 1950's for a change of scenery, an easy trip out from WSM was to catch the 24 bus from the Beach Bus Station over to Bristol for only 2/3 (two shillings and three pence) return. Here is Bristol at that time showing how close the working docks were to the centre. The docks are still much the same to look at now but without the cargo ships anymore. Many of the dockside buidings have changed or gone altogether since this view.
The return ticket on the way back would be torn in half by the conductor who kept the top half and gave you back the lower half.

BT&CC Ltd on the ticket stood for the grandly named Bristol Tramways & Carriage Co. Ltd.
 
Back from Bristol and the the sun sets on another fine day in WSM. Pity they didn't wait for the fountain to light up as they did in the multiview. (More donkeys here for GG Jean too!)
 
The Odeon cinema came up earlier in the Thread and here it is again in the late 1930's and some 40 years later still there for a rainy day. Thirty years on and the many rainy days we have now probably see plenty of folks glad of a trip to the flicks.
In the multiview, notice the charabanc driver posing for the camera in the lower right hand view.
 
Alf said:
Here another Mike showing When Eight Bells Toll 1971

https://mawgrim.sathosting.net/cavalcade/weston.jpg

Do or Did you know this cinema Mike

https://mawgrim.sathosting.net/cavalcade/westong.jpg
Click to expand...


Alf, thanks for the Odeon view. Not being from Weston I'm sorry I'm not familiar with the other cinema and haven't even been inside the WSM Odeon. My cinema going before moving to Brum was always over in my home town of Bath where we had the Beau Nash (ABC), the Odeon, the Forum and the Little Theatre in the City centre and in the suburbs the Scala (which we pronounce as skayla unlike in Brum where it's skala). Sadly of all of them, only the least expected is still a Cinema - The Little Theatre which is about the size of the Electra (formerly the Tatler) in Brum's Station Street.
PS. I like the smokey transit pickup outside the Odeon in that pic.

Mike

In case we are reminded we are slipping off thread another WSM pic
 
Thats more like it Len. Now for news of the Grand Pier. In the Evenining Mail tonight, work is to start on removing the debri over the next six weeks with another couple of weeks to remove it. It's bound to make another interesting photo opportunity when flattened all the way out to the end.
 
Don't panic Mr Mainwaring it's not Warmington on Sea, it's Burnham on Sea! This card was posted to London from Highbridge on 10-8-1939. The view has to be 1920's and the writer commented that "this view is a bit old fashioned, the buses are double deckers but not like these".
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top