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Toolboxes from trams

T

tardebigge

BCT Fan
When the trams were broken up in 1953, could someone confirm that some of the wood was used to make toolboxes for the "upper echelon" of the Transport Department.
I seem to remember my deceased father mentioning this was so. I have this old toolbox and would like to be able to confirm its history.
Thanks
 
As the trams were sold complete for scrap to William Bird of Stratford, and usually just chopped in half horizontally through the lower deck window pillars to be taken away on lorries, I doubt that the materials were reclaimed for toolboxes. It is possible though that the tramway works at Kyotts Lake Road turned them out as the amount of repair and overhaul work reduced drastically during the last months of operation. The works superintendent, P. W. ('Pop') Lawson, undertook a full overhaul of tramcar 395 after it had been put aside for preservation in the Science Museum, no doubt hoping it might one day run again. Sadly this has (so far) not been the case, and the museum where it and many facets of Birmingham's industrial history were accessible free of charge to the City's inhabitants has closed. 395 now resides in the awfully-named 'thinktank' in Curzon Street.
 
My brother bought a large piece of plywood from the ceiling of a tram, at the Witton Depot, for pennies. This was used as a baseboard for his Hornby railway. It still had the wonderful toned sepia decoration on one side. I can also remember seeing the brass 'power handle' (or whatever it was called) of a Birmingham tram in an antiques shop.

Big Gee
 
tardebigge said:
When the trams were broken up in 1953, could someone confirm that some of the wood was used to make toolboxes for the "upper echelon" of the Transport Department.
I seem to remember my deceased father mentioning this was so. I have this old toolbox and would like to be able to confirm its history.
Thanks
Click to expand...


There were a few trams that were parked? up at Pebble Mill Rd for a time and of course parts of the trams were put on the missing list like destination blind and the destination boxes
 
One line of the dual track in Pebble Mill Road was indeed used for parking trams during the conversion of Cotteridge and/or Selly Oak depots for bus operation, and using the other line with very modern colour-light signals to maintain the Pershore Road service. This and a nearby section of Bristol Road was used again for tram storage after Selly Oak depot closed to trams, and before there was room to take them to Kyotts Lake Road works or Witton depot for scrap. Surviving film of 'last movements' several days after the closure of the Bristol Road routes shows the cars making their last journeys carrying young enthusiasts taking rides on exhilarating fast non-stop rides, things that present day H&S rules would forbid.
 
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