Until the 1990s Preston Tramway Workshops was a hive of activity with overhauls and heavy rebuilds being undertaken routinely. The 1987 visit was after hours, 1988 during the day. The driver training was probably March 2000
Years ago it was an interesting place, but nowadays with most of it converted into New Preston depot, I don’t think it does much ‘workshop’ work any more. The overhaul of Z, A and B class trams has been done by contractors at the old Preston depot.
I did some work on the Preston workshop refurbishment a few years ago, would’ve been plenty of collectables walked out the doors no doubt. Great old buildings though.
That would have been an interesting job, at least if you have any interest in the subject. I guess that having watched this video, you must have some. Anyway it shows what a hive of activity it was in days gone by.
It’s good that the general appearance of the former workshops remains, even if that is just because it was cheaper to make use of existing buildings rather than pull them down for new buildings or more likely these days, just open air sidings. Nice that you liked the video.
I liked that good to see inside Preston workshop years ago. I would say my fav parts were that model tram system you know I made an electric B1 class tram out of cardboard that goes on ho gauge track and seeing a non refurbished B class.
This must be where the great Aussie film "Malcolm" was partly filmed. Also saw Harris trains on a bridge over a road on that too. Great film, thanks for the upload. We had trams here in Hastings, England, for a while, there was a powerhouse that generated 6.6KV AC which went to subs around the system where it was converted to 550V DC for the wires. We also had trolleybuses but it all went in favour of diesel buses. When they did up the road here to this day, in certain areas, you can see the old 3' 6" gauge tramlines. In a street near me there are still insulators on the buildings that once carried the overheads. Such a shame, but every UK city o r town bar Blackpool got rid of the tram. I often wonder how much Hastings would be different now if they'd kept them, people would've come to ride them as a novelty, though of course we'd probably have a fleet of newer vehicles for day to day use. They could've kept the "heritage trams" for the better weather and the tourists. As it is, we're a faded seaside resort full of illegal immigrants, chavs, and other scroungers, with a drugs problem.
+River Huntingdon It's a long time since I saw this movie but near the end there is a scene of Malcolm's tram disappearing up,and over a hill. This is the bridge over the train line next to Preston Workshops. Since the, 'The Hump', as trammies call it, is double track but still trams only while most of the workshops is now the New Preston Depot, the older depot nearby being closed.
Not officially, but for quite a few years before starting work on the trams I had a friend who was a scrubber car driver and I clocked up many km driving them at night when visiting Melbourne. Mostly he preferred 10w but 11w and 9w were driven a few times. Once I got to drive flusher car 7w spraying weeds in Royal Park before first tram one Sunday morning.
Like it, noticed Z1.60 near the start & Z1.48 later on in the video... I believe both were used for spare parts and then scrapped? I like how you showed W2.533, a tram damaged in a fire. I find it funny that both 'it' & Comeng 533M were damaged in fires.
+TrickyMario7654 I guess you know that all the Z1 and Z2 class are out of service now. Pity, they were fun to drive when I was a driver there. The fire in W2 533 occurred during that 5 Week stop work around 1990. It was probably no accident. It was in the old Thornbury depot.
+TrickyMario7654 Hi Mario. You only missed them by a couple of months - April I think was the end. As for why, as has always been the case, the oldest get replaced by something newer, usually after 40 to 60 years.
Very interesting video, we used to have workshops like that up until 5 or so years ago, they gave all the staff a very 'handsome' retirement incentive, and with the very few that didn't take it they have a struggle to maintain what's left - idiotic Council. It now costs them more to maintain the 'modern' ones, as all they can do is keep ordering parts from the makers as no-one knows how to repair them.
I forget where you come from. Nearly all of Preston workshops is now an ordinary tram depot transferred from the nearby Preston depot. Apparently they still do some heavy maintenance but at the moment part of the former Preston depot is being used as a workshop to give midlife overhauls to the B class.
Blackpool, UK. The joke is that 15 miles away we have a city called Preston, - small world. Only thing they don't have trams anymore, - at one time they even had a very big tramcar builder 'Dick Kerr'. In fact they were one of the biggest in our Country, alas now just a memory.
