Den Haag (NL) – April
On April 20th PCC #7065 from Brussels was used on line 12 between the tram museum and Duindorp Loop. The car had arrived in Den Haag for the “75th birthday of PCCs in Europe” in early 2024 but never made it beyond a short test run as its pantograph and the overhead network were somehow incompatible. This problem has now been solved and the car can at least run on one or two selected parts of the network. Many enthusiasts from the Netherlands and Belgium plus a few others headed over for this event. The car ran only a few trips but other local museum cars were also out on the same line. Here are some impressions of this rare event (at this stage only two more outings are planned later this year but the last one is reserved for members of a Dutch enthusiasts society). The weather was great!
Mülheim/Ruhr (DE) – April
At the end of April we attended the AHN meeting in Muelheim an der Ruhr vor www.vdva.de. Most German tram museum organisations (and a few non-German) meet once a year to discuss subjects that are important for these societies (running museum cars, restoring them and keeping them active, attracting the public and public relations to name just a few). The area we visited is served by various transport companies and almost every city has its own museum society that runs historic trams on this very large tram network (which connects many of the cities with each other and in our case often by going through Essen but not all tramlines in the area have the same track gauge). We were entertained with various rides and visits after the conference type meetings each day on many of the 1000mm lines. The photo sections are split into cities we visited each day (the trams used came from Essen and Bochum-Gelsenkirchen but we saw also trams from other systems (some can operate, some can’t). The first two days were rather wet but later it got quite warm. Next year the meeting is in Bremen. Our conference took place inside the very old museum halls of “Die alte Dreherei” which was once a railway workshop (Ausbesserungswerk Speldorf 1874-1959). It is a museum venue for many societies and also houses a few trams. Right next door (and recently connected with a non-electrified track) is the tram and bus depot encompassing the more modern loco shed from 1918 now mostly used for day-to-day running (with most of the heavy maintenance undertaken at the Essen central tram workshops now that both Mülheim and Essen are operated by the same company Ruhrbahn).
Mühlheim and Oberhausen with Essen and Gelsenkirchen (before joining the conference the next day the first day was spent riding trams in Muelheim and Oberhausen and later via the 1435mm so-called U-Bahn to Essen to see the Docklands Light Railway cars from London) – April
Mülheim and Oberhausen (includes “Die Alte Dreherei” Museum in Mülheim and the tram depot Rosendahl next door) – April
Mülheim and Essen (includes “Die Alte Dreherei” Museum and Rosendahl depot plus a visit to the Essen central workshops/U-Bahn depot at Schweriner Strasse) – April
Mülheim and Bochum (again via Essen and then via Gelsenkirchen with visit to the modern Engelsburg depot in Bochum) – April
Wuppertal Schwebebahn workshop at Vohwinkel and the “BMB museum” at Kohlfurther Bruecke – April
