Trams |
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The trams are the Beamish serviceable fleet in 2016, they are Gateshead No.10, Sunderland No.16, Blackpool No.31, Newcastle No.114, Oporto No.196, Sheffield No.264 and the yet to be restored Gateshead No.52. Full details of each tram appear alongside their images in the Photo Gallery.
All the trams, except Gateshead No.52, were built by Alan Kirkman from white metal kits, complete plastic kits or parts of different plastic kits, a cut down Bachmann Brill body and a 3D printed body and are powered from the overhead. They are all fitted with T-poles, which are fixed non-rotating trolley poles fitted with a wide bow collector style pickup at the end, to make exhibition running much more reliable than if trolley poles with wheels were used.
Gateshead No.52 was built by Gordon Bulmer from a redundant Bachmann Brill body and an old four wheeled railway truck, which were both shortened to the correct lengths, and can be found, sheeted down, standing on some old rails behind the wall next to Barclays Bank.
Blackpool No.31 was fitted with an Alan Kirkman HT1 Halling type single bogie drive chassis and Gateshead No.10 is fitted with Alan Kirkman built HT2 chassis using Halling bogies driven by a Halling motor through flexible drive tubes. Sunderland No.16 is fitted with a Halling KSW chassis and Newcastle No.114, Oporto No.196 and Sheffield No.264 are fitted with Halling Vario chassis. For more details on the chassis used under the trams check the Halling Tram Chassis page.
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One of the visiting trams was Lytham St Annes No.33, which was an unusual cross bench open topped double deck tram. It was built from a Tramalan white metal kit and fitted with a Halling KSW chassis by the late Nolan Doe. Other visitors included Blackpool Standard No.147, Blackpool Boat No.233, Blackpool No.280, Blackpool No.703 (as long term visitor Sunderland No.101) and Manchester No.765. |
Buses |
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The Beamish buses follow a magnetic strip round the road circuit and stop at the Park tram and bus stop and at two stops behind the backscene. Construction of the 'Newcastle Corporation' and the 'Northern' buses were from KeilKraft 1920 London General Omnibus Company B Type bus kits. The 'Venture' bus was built from tram kit parts and plastic card. They were all motorised with home built chassis. Descriptions of all three are in the Road Vehicles section of the Photo Gallery. |
Townscape |
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All of the town buildings were made from photos taken by Gordon Bulmer and had all obstructions removed and verticals corrected by Malcolm Fraser, Peter Rose and Gordon who printed them the correct size on to self-adhesive photo paper. These prints were attached to 1 mm card, cut out and assembled to form all of the buildings in the town. The origins and previous history of all of the buildings in the street are included alongside their images in the Photo Gallery. |
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The Masonic Hall (right) encloses the Gaugemaster uncased transformer and Barclays Bank (left) contains the control panel. It was the first building made for Beamish and was the last one made almost entirely from recycled 1 mm card advertising signs, hence the brightly coloured interior. This one used out-of-date Screwfix adverts, which before anyone goes to ask, because of cost they now use paper instead of card for all their adverts. |
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The Garage was built next and the rear extension was made open backed to store out of service buses but has since been enclosed by the main backscene. To allow for easy repair, all of the buildings have short lengths of 12 mm square wood sections fitted and are fixed in place by two screws through the baseboard. This one was the last one to be built almost entirely from recycled 1 mm card SALE signs, from a shop which was closing, giving it the red interior. |
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The Co-op was the third one built and was the easiest one to build due to its square shape and was built from new A4 sheets of 1 mm grey card. It was built open backed to store out of service trams but has since been enclosed by the main backscene. |
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The Co-op canopy was built using 3 mm by 2 mm plastic frame with 1.6 mm plastic covered steel columns fitted into pre-drilled holes and was completed with York Modelmaking N gauge canopy brackets. The frame was painted crimson and glued to the front of the Co-op and into holes drilled through the paving, which is fixed to the building. The canopy itself was printed on to an overhead projection transparency and, to prevent the printing being rubbed off, was varnished before being cut out and glued in place. |
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J. R. & D. Edis Photographer and W. Smith Chemist was the last one built and is based on this grade 2 listed period building on a sloping site on Elvet Bridge in Durham. This has been copied and built reversed on a level site at Beamish and was opened in May 2016. |
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This building, with its curved front and unusual shape, was the most complex to build, taking more than nine hours over two days to complete but it was well worth the effort. It was originally built using a reversed photo of the building in Durham but this was later replaced by a photo of the completed building at Beamish. Further details and photographs of the buildings, the right way up, can be found in the Construction Blog. |
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The park was shaped from 50 mm thick high density insulation foam (Kingspan) using an old carving knife and a small curved multi-tooth plane. After painting with dilute PVA it was allowed to dry, after small areas were treated with ready made filler and sanded when dry, it was again painted with dilute PVA, to give a smooth surface, and allowed to dry. |
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The Mod Roc has been added to the foam shape. The photo shows everything else covered with cloths. This messy job was done in the shed, with its fluorescent lighting, which explains the unusual colour. There was sufficient Mod Roc to cover the insulation twice, so a second layer was added when the first was dry. When the Mod Roc was dry it was quite rough and needed to be sanded, filled and painted again with dilute PVA. |
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It was covered with Gaugemaster GM22 autumn grass matting before the flower beds were made from patches of flowers from Country Scenes. There are three pillars for the park gates and railings, and one at the end of the footpath, which were made from lengths of 8 mm square plastic tube topped with white metal caps. The backscene is fixed in place using cavity fixings screwed and glued into the plaster bandage and the high density foam insulation. |
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In the park is an octagonal etched brass bandstand obtained from Dart Castings which was built by Alan Kirkman and painted by Margaret. The pillars were replaced, after it was built, by 40 mm lengths of 1.6 mm round bar to raise the roof and make it look more like the Beamish bandstand. The finishing touch is a Langley Models brass band playing in the bandstand with music from a CD player and under-board speakers. |
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The backscenes were made using Townscene Cloudy sky paper spray mounted on to the boards with photo scenes from Supersize Prints mounted on to thin card and spaced off the sky paper with 1 mm card to help with the perspective. The town backscene is screwed to 12 mm square timber glued inside the rear of the Co-op and the Garage. The street is populated with modern figures with a small number in Edwardian costumes as most Beamish staff work inside the exhibits and only a small number would be seen on the street at any time. |