Crich Tramway Museum

We are enjoying some rather good weather at present so took the opportunity yesterday to visit the Tramway Museum at Crich, near Cromford in Derbyshire. This is a trip that we have had on the 'to do' list for a while but the museum only re-opened for the 2014 season at the beginning of this month. This morning we met at Malc's at 10:30, Malc and I on our Suzuki Freewind 650 motorbikes, Ivan on his MP3.

Nearly there - Malc was leading at this point and decided to stop in Cromford for a break. My Freewind nearest the camera, then Malcs, with Ivan's MP3 beyond that.

Nice day, so the Museum was using some open-top trams, including this ex-Blackpool Corporation Tramways 'toast rack', so called for an obvious reason.

Another ex-Blackpool open tram was this superbly restored 'Boat' tram

We took a ride on the upper deck of this ex-Sheffield 4-wheeler to the quarry exhibition area at Wake Bridge where we were able to sit at one of the picnic tables for lunch

After lunch we boarded the 'toast-rack' to travel down to the 'Village', passing the 'boat' coming up the other way.

I wonder where this saw service? A Dick-Kerr steam driven electrical generator.

 I last visited Crich in September 2009 and took this picture on my phone of the village area

Another 2009 phone picture, showing how scenic is the view from the tram at the top of the site

Back to yesterday's visit. The standard of restoration of the trams is of a very high order, and visitors are free to wander around the tram shed to examine the entire fleet.

Entry charge for the museum entitles one to return free of charge for one year, so I'd guess this won't be our last visit to this excellent museum in 2014!

EDIT: 16 August 2014, Malc and I did indeed re-visit, me on the mighty Moto Guzzi Griso and he again on his Freewind. We combined the trip with a little research into the line of the Cromford & High Peak Railway, and returned via Crowdecote, Longnor, Winking Man, and Gradbach. While at Crich we had a ride on 'Sheffied's Last Tram' (pictured above) and attended the 14:00 guided tour of the main part of the site - very interesting!

.