Operations at the National Tramway Museum

Added: 2026-05-30

[00:00:02]In today's video, we're off to Crutch, the home of the National Tramway Museum in Darbisha.

[00:00:07]The railway here was originally a mineral railway built by George Stevenson. This was later closed and the National Tramway Museum adopted part of the old railway system as their new running line. As we arrive, we get to see what trams are on today. And we get given a voucher, our tickets, and also a guide and a penny. The penny is very important because you can spend this to get your ticket on the tram. You can't keep the penny, but it's just there as a nice little gesture. Our two trams are running today, plus a third Fleetwood tram. And as we leave our main terminus, you'll probably notice that the track is gauntleted. The two are interlaced together through underneath the bridge.

[00:00:49]Here comes our Fleetwood tram. We're going to get into a little bit of the description of how the line is operated and works. But first, we'll take a ride on the tram up to the top end there of the line. Very old quarry.

[00:01:03]This is the middle station where we come in and there's also one tram stop above that where we can get off as well and have a look around. This is the interlace track we were mentioning.

[00:01:13]The whole site has been done up as a Victorian street with a replica pub that actually sells beer and the workshops and museum which we'll also visit in a minute.

[00:01:22]It's a 750 volt DC system, but we'll get into that. So, let's have a look at the cinery first.

[00:01:29]As with all tramways, the overhead cinery provides one part of the power and [music] a return path back to the substation, which the tramway has at one of his upper stations, is via the rails, which are all continuously bonded so that there's no faults through fish plate joints. The trams have to have their power poles turned round at the end terminuses off the line. This is done manually by staff on the ground with long poles, and you'll see this in the video. There's also at their third stop on the uphill section a point where there are two separate wires and they have to swap from one cinery wire to the other cinary wire. This is done manually and then the brakes are retested.

[00:02:10]I asked how the tram's power pole manages to follow the right cinery wire at the intersections where points and crossovers are. This is the answer.

[00:02:20]>> Uh operated by a drop lever. So they they for straight on they just sit where they are. But if the tram's going to the to the side at the point as the tram goes to the [music] side the trolley pole knocks the lever that moves the frog across.

[00:02:35]>> So the trailer goes through.

[00:02:43]>> Much like on a train, trams have bell coats between the conductor at the front and the ticket collector at the back and the inspector.

[00:02:52]seems to be two bells for proceed.

[00:02:55]There's also one bell which on the day was being used quite a lot for checking that certain things had actually been done. You'll notice we're approaching the first stop where the main entrance is and the car park. It's a very short run up to this point. We run through the interlace track here track before we go on to the short double track section to the next tram stop here. All the rails are in the cobbled road, but as we progress, the rails are exposed much like a normal railway so that the permanent way department can get access to everything.

[00:03:31]>> You'll notice we've now entered the single line section. This is the first of two single line sections. This one is controlled by a blue staff. The second one is controlled by a yellow staff.

[00:03:40]You'll see that being handed over onto a post very soon where it's left until the next tram comes up to be able to take it.

[00:03:48]The two tokens are basically dog toys, rubber dog toys, which serve as the colored tokens for the sections. Simple signaling.

[00:04:11]The Sheffield tram is coming the other way and has already made a stop waiting for us to come to a stop in the loop first. This keeps some separation between the trams. Whilst trams can run close together, keeping that separation is more safer. You'll see now as the Sheffield tram comes down, it hands the yellow token directly to the driver of the previous tram. He saves putting on the post and having to take it off again.

[00:04:36]There's a token handed over directly.

[00:04:39]>> With that handed over, the section's now clear.

[00:04:41]>> Now, the next thing you'll notice when we set off is we come to an abrupt stop just before the hill section. That's to swap over the power pole on the cinery and also do a brake test.

[00:04:53]>> We're just going to move the trolley pole from the one wire onto the other.

[00:04:58]At the moment, those at the front will be able to see there's a left and a right wire.

[00:05:03]>> It's on the left hand wire at the moment. Oh, >> but when we get to the top of the hill, we're going to go towards the to the right hand side. So, >> it's easier to change it.

[00:05:30]>> Now, we've reached the terminus at the top of the hill. We also noticed that there is some line side phones here for communication between the crews on the trams and the main office. The tramway does have its own internal communication system which is or was based on a stranger telephone exchange system but has now gone digital. There are various dial phones around the site and some very old preserved GPO phones post office phones. One the concrete shell and several of the more common red go type. These are in various different stages of restoration, but the phones are used around the system by all the operators.

[00:06:23]With our tram heading down the hill, we'd expect to see it having taken the blue token. Now when the token gets to the bottom of the hill in this case there's two trams going to follow each other. Hence the first tram will not hand over the blue token onto the post.

[00:06:39]So as we see the second tram coming past will continue with the blue token. Pick up the yellow token and off it goes up to the top followed by the second tram which will then surrender the blue token on the post.

[00:07:12]After a short duration, the returning tram comes back down from the top of the hill and it will hand over its yellow token before it does a brake test first before entering the loop.

[00:07:25]Now, not every tram carries its own power pole. Some of the power poles are left to strategic locations. They hang off the actual cinery posts themselves, as you've just seen.

[00:07:58]As we head into the workshops off the tramway and the museum sheds itself, we notice there's a rather nice display on the cinery itself. There are various different types of patinery from the poles that we've seen which follow with a runner on the wire to more European style systems with an actual contact surface that wears across the power wire itself. And it's worth mentioning that the power wire isn't exactly in the middle of the track. With these systems, they slightly wave from left to right, thereby not wearing down on the actual wires itself.

[00:08:35]But these aren't the only power systems that were tried on trams. There was an in the ground power system with a groove and a hidden conductor and also conductor studs which is a nice example outside the sheds which you can see here. These were worked off magnets under the tram that pulled up the conductor out of a slot in the ground to make contact. They were prone to getting jammed up with leaves and other detritis and therefore not a really good idea.

[00:09:04]So, it didn't last very long. The rest of the museum is dedicated towards the early tram roads that set up the history of the tramways in this country. And you'll notice as you go around some of the sheds, those three lamps appearing everywhere. Each of those lamps drops 250 volts, a standard house lamp. And being as it is a 750 volt system, if all three lamps are lit, you should have live energy on that road. Therefore, staff can see whether the roads are live or not live. And I know someone's going to say, "What happens if a bulb blows?"

[00:09:35]There are processes in place to deal with that as well.

[00:09:39]The main exhibition hall is laid out in different time zones. The 1920s, the 1930s, the 1940s and 50s, and so on. In the center is this giant eagle, the symbol of brush, the motor works near Leicester and Around this is located various examples of the control equipment and the motors that fit underneath the tram cars. And it's a lovely display to be able to see what you don't normally see underneath the tram. There are some virtual exhibits here and some interactive exhibits which are all good. And it's a lovely collection of trams from all over the world, not just from the United Kingdom.

[00:10:21]One thing to note is this traverser built by a local firm in Chesterfield.

[00:10:25]This single road traverser manages to connect all the storage sheds and the workshops by a single rail connection.

[00:10:33]No points.

[00:10:37]Anyway, that's a small look at the Crutch Tramway Museum, how it operates and the systems in which the trams work.

[00:10:43]And we hope you enjoyed that video and we'd recommend that you take a trip certainly on a gala day when there's an event on and they have all the vintage vehicles down the main street. We'd like to thank K Tramway, all their volunteers and staff for showing us around and to yourselves for watching this video.

[00:11:00]Thank you.