another set of pictures with a rather mysterious title. We do not have a car 811 at Crich! But here is an 811:
This is a tramway vehicle! Is it diesel loco Hannover 811 of 1962 at the Hannover Tramway Museum at Wehmingen. It was purchased to shunt goods wagons at Rethen station, then the only remains of the once intensive freight service of Hannover Tramways. It turned out the small loco was too weak for that and it was then used to shunt cars round the main works. There too, it was too weak and in went to the museum in 1982. There is pulled a trailer to provide rides for visitors before overhead went up. Still is was a bit on the weak side and its gearbox was wrecked on an uphill section on a hot summer day wth a fully loaded trailer. It was repaired and repainted but sees hardly any use now.
But this is not the vehicle, I am referring to in the title.
And here is another 811:
Well, it is not really 811. It is a digitally modified picture of 812 leaning towards her sister, taken in May 1997.
So here is the full story of our two cars 811:
Flashback to 3 October 1994. It is dull, grey, wet, a miserable day. It is a Monday, Unification Day, a public holiday in Germany. I had conducted trams at Crich on the weekend and decided that I as a German am entitled to have a day off university on "my" public holiday. There was a vacancy for a driver and a conductor in the midweek roster and I had the brilliant idea to fill one of the gaps. I think that was the first year we opened midweek in October and it was my first midweek duty ever. The duty inspector was surprised to see me as the did not expect a third conductor. Due to no third driver being available we took two trams out, Glasgow 22 and Prague 180, and took the conducting in turns. We had 33 visitors and I sold one tram riding certificate and was told off for causing all the paperwork for 30p. But then there were the two cars 811.
Here is the first 811 waiting at Town End:
And here is the second 811 coming down the street with some assistance:
Now the two 811s are being unified, on the German Unification day!
And at last the two 811s have been and gone. Let's do some maths: 811 + 811 = 1622. So here we welcome the newly arrived London 1622!
Two London trams close to each other. I could not have imagined then that six years later, I would drive 1622 while training for my initial tram driving licence at Crich (without gaining the licence for 1622, because it was under special instructions) and I think then nobody imagined that it would take another thirteen years before 1622 became a tramcar that performed satisfactorily!
Kind regards
Christoph