Not North American, but posted to give a wider audience to our 5 (and a bit) year restoration job on a Cambridge (UK) horse car, that is now nearing completion at the Ipswich Transport Museum.

The car was built, as far as we can ascertain, in 1880 by Starbuck of Birkenhead (nr Liverpool) as a single-deck car for Bath Tramways, then being sold on to an operator in Bradford in 1884, where it was converted to double-deck form, and used as a steam-dummy trailer.
It remained there until 1894, when it was sold to Cambridge Street Tramways, remaining in operation there until 1914 when the tramways closed. The Cambridge system was never electrified, so it was horse drawn until the end, conversion to petrol (gasoline) buses taking place in 1914.
From there, the body was sold to become a "Cobblers workshop" in the Ely area until being discovered in the 1990's.
Our group obtained it in the early years of this Century from Cambridge Industrial Museum in an unrestored state, as it was similar to those used in Ipswich from 1880-1903 and as none of the Ipswich cars had survived.

What we started with was this..........

We were able to get a substantial grant from our National Lottery (when such things were easier to get...) of what is currently worth about $65,000 US and a small but dedicated team of 4-5 regular volunteer workers have now transformed it into this.....

The chap standing by the car is Tony White, our (volunteer) master woodworker, who has been responsible for all (quite a bit!) of the new woodwork - though there is a substantial amount of the original material reused in the job, despite the apparent state of the remains in the first photo. The original bodyside panelling, which was carefully rubbed doen to reveal the original lettering and advertisements have acually been removed and conserved and provide a seperate display next to the tramcar.
Working in conjunction with other like minded groups, a brand new four foot gauge truck was cast, using patterns produced by a Leeds based group for a car they had restored.
The 4' gauge wasn't common here, as most narrow-gauge tramways were 3' 6" in the UK - including the Ipswich ones. It was decided at an early stage to restore it as a Cambridge car, rather than turn it into an ersatz Ipswich tram.

There are still a few panels missing on the recent photo, as they are still being signwritten, plus some handrails need to be added as well. The plastic "horse" has recently arrived which will be posed with it, so the completed vehicle will take pride of place in our 2019 Open Season which starts at the end of March.

The horse-car now fills a gap in our local transportation representation, as we now have that, a 1904 Ipswich electric car an a 1923 trackless trolley all fully restored, apart from a wide selection of later vehicles from 1930-1976.

Very impressive. Would love to see it in more detail but a long drive for me. Congrats to all involved, beautiful work. Regards, John.

Wow, that is quite an impressive transformation. And in only five years. Nice!

Congratulations are well due! It looks like the fantastic product of a great restoration!

Extremely impressive!!

As Doctor Beaker would say in the old British TV series "Supercar," "Satisfactory. Most satisfactory!"

(Who among us remembers that?)

Some initial work started in Summer 2012, mainly by one of our members painstakingly rubbing down the bodysides with fine abrasive paper (wet&dry method) to try and reveal any livery and markings still extant under the various layers of paint (see below..).
Some dismantling occured at that time to enable a thorough survey of what we had got to take place and thereby work out likely restoration costs in order to apply for a Lottery grant.
Once a Grant had been approved, various strict timescales were imposed by the Heritage Lottery Fund in order to get the money - the 5 year limit to finish it off being one of those constraints. In the end, they were a bit flexible, so it has actually taken about 6 months longer than that.

The "rubbing down" phase revealed a lot more than we were expecting, as it produced evidence of previous ownership before Cambridge, and this was totally new information!

The side which can be seen in the "before" picture posted above was tackled first, and this produced the Cambridge maroon livery & lining out, plus some advertisements...


It also revealed the Cambridge fleet #7 (just discernable) in a circular device that didn't make much sense at the time...


Things got more interesting on the other bodyside, as rubbing down of the circular device revealed the crest of Bradford City and wording along the lines of "Bradford and Shelf Tramways Company". On top of this, reference to Bath Tramways was found on some parts removed from inside the passenger saloon, and these dated from when the car was built back in 1880 !!
This side of the car is shown below, as of January 2013, when the results of the Lottery application were still awaited. The Bradford crest can clearly be seen in the centre of the side panel.

This is the side of the car that is visible on the picture of the restored car in post #1


The group of volunteers who have been working on the horse car were also responsible for restoring our 1904 Ipswich double-deck electric car, which also started off as just a downstairs body (plus the end platform supports) after being used as a storage shed in a domestic garden between 1926 and 1976.

The truck is a Brill 21E one that we obtained from Lisbon in Portugal a number of years back. The idea was to convert it to 3'6" gauge, but it has been left as Lisbon gauge (900mm, from memory), given that it wasn't restored to operating condition and we haven't got anywhere to run it

As we have run out of trams for them to restore now, I'm not sure what the team is going to move on to next........

70000 -

You guys do fantastic work. I am in total awe!


Les

Congratulations. She is a beauty!

In the 1990's, we shared a similar effort in the restoration of our horse-car, #7. it was operated at the 1999 Sacramento Railfair, providing the only on-site ride for visitors.

When appropriate motive power is secured, the car is operated for special events.

http://ctrc.org/index.php?option=com_co ... &Itemid=39

Ken Middlebrook
California Trolley and Railroad Corporation