Nagasaki Tram 1054 Damaged in Accident

[bill937ca]

Former Nagasaki tram 1054 was damaged in an accident on the line at the Sydney Tramway Museum.  A wheel chock failed to hold an ex-Sydney tram 1904 from rolling down the line to a collision with 1054 which was carrying passengers. Local news story here.

Edited May 29, 2016 by bill937ca

[katoftw]

I'm pretty sure a regular poster is an active member of that museum.  Hopefully he can shed some light on the subject when the investigation is complete.

[marknewton]

That would be me.

 

Briefly, the J wasn't properly stabled by it's crew, so once the air bled out of the brake cylinder it ran away unoccupied down the grade towards the museum entrance, where it collided with the Nagasaki car. Fortunately no-one was hurt, but the driver of 1054 was in shock afterwards.

 

1054 is a very solidly-built tram, it suffered a small dent in the front apron which will easily be repaired. However J675 is very badly damaged, and will need a complete rebuild. 675 is a typical Sydney crossbench or "toastrack" car. All of the strength and structural integrity is in the underframe. The body is just a lightweight structure to keep the passengers protected from the weather and safe from falling out.

 

I'm very glad that there were no injuries, very glad that 1054 only got dented, but bitterly disappointed that the J got damaged so badly. For many years we thought we'd never have an example of this tramcar type. They were a small class numerically and they were withdrawn and scrapped before WW2. So we thought they were all long gone and we'd never see one.

 

Then out of the blue, the body of J675 turned up in the backyard of house only a few kilometres down the road from the museum and was offered to us. It required extensive restoration, and the importation of a Brill 21E truck from Brussels to complete the car and make it operational. And now we're back to where we started.

 

Mark.

Edited June 13, 2016 by marknewton