At Saturday's informal morning meeting, Board Member Andrew Willis, outlined preliminary plans for a new depot at Cabin Crossing and invited donations towards the cost. From his description I think it will be located near to the pile of stones in this picture. It will be based on an agricultural building and will not be open to the public but will be used for tramcar storage only. 
The remarkable thing is, that Crich has a huge amount of space available for a new depot: on top of the Exhibition Hall!
ReplyDeleteKassel had a multi-story tramdepot at Hollandische Strasze. Likewise Stockholm had a multi-story depot (now transport museum and bus depot).
Connecting to such a depot could bring the tracks over the Bowes Lyon Bridge into play as a nice spin-off for horse tram operation.
Wim, such dreams, get a grip and accept the reality, have a look at the existing buildings around the museum, we can't afford to maintain what we already have either financially or in manpower terms let alone add to the outgoings.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - if we had thought your way in the early days when we had little money and not that many helpers there would be no museum for you to enjoy. Wim's ideas may seem extreme but that is the way progress is made. Don't contemplate your navel, contemplate the future.
ReplyDeleteJ
For many years I have been involved in the operational maintenance of buildings. One of the most expensive long term aspects is the maintenance of roofs and the costs of climate control.
ReplyDeleteBy thinking two dimensionally, like adding more depots, you not only increase floor space but also roof space. By adding another floor to an existing building, you not only increase space and volume without adding roof space, you also safe on climate costs, because to ratio between volume and outside surface area is much better. These are not dreams, they are reality. The problem with a double deck tram depot is the ramp. However, this ramp is already there in the mainline. If you have limited resources available, you really need to do some long term thinking. And one of the basic items is how to safe on operational costs.
@Anonymous: Had the TMS founders in the 1950s had such an opinion there would be no museum today. Build a working tramway museum? With volunteer manpower? And hardly any money? In an old quarry? Far away from any city? That will never work!
ReplyDeleteIt did and still does. And might work even better without such negative comments and attitudes. Isn't the question "HOW can we achieve that?" much more exciting than "Will that really work?". Big ideas excite people, normally. Look at Tornado, look at the Ecclestone Valley Railway, look at the Engine House on the Severn Valley Railway and you know what I mean. How can we attract visitors and volunteers with such a negative attitude? Think positive! Have fun at Crich! Meet happy people! Have ideas! Smile!
Rant over. I feel better now. :-)
On a purely practical note, the existing structure's foundations would need to have been designed to accommodate the weight of a multi-storey structure, not sure this was the case.
ReplyDeleteI was involved in tramcar storage at the time and wanted / suggested that we should excavate out beneath the exhibition hall to form storage tanks for water that could be collected off the depot roofs and used to supply a sprinkler system for use in the event of fire. This was not financially possible so it's unlikely that anything other than the bare minimum was expended, money had to be borrowed (in the form of debentures) to fund the construction of the exhibition hall. There has often been plenty of foresight available but seldom the money to exploit it.
In response to some of the other comments I would point out that 50 years ago there was a small army of (relatively) young, fit, willing volunteers to undertake the many tasks around the musuem, as has been highlighted both on this blogsite and at the recent AGM there's hardly been enough volunteers to crew the trams on recent occassions!