Travel through time with Beamish transport festival
Get a ticket to how things were
Many a conveyance back in time will be available to anyone taking a trip to Beamish in the coming days.
The Festival of Transport, starting on Saturday (May 23) at the Living Museum of the North, offers a taste of times when life was lived at a gentler if not necessarily quieter pace.
Pioneering vehicles of the early 20th Century covered the miles on less congested roads but with no guarantee of a peaceful ride, often serenading passengers with clanks, rattles and roars.
On the buses, some of the roars may have come from the uniformed conductors as they dispensed tickets from machines now consigned to history.
Indeed, Fares Please! (May 23 to 25) is the first element of the nine-day festival with buses from the museum’s own fleet augmented by visiting vehicles in a static display in Beamish’s 1950s town.
Happy memories will also be stirred for many by the model bus and tram exhibition to be mounted in the town’s Welfare Hall.
The street through the 1950s town will play host on May 26 and 28 (Tuesday and Thursday) to the Sunderland and District Classic Vehicle Society whose lovingly maintained cars and motorcycles will be on display.
On May 27 (Wednesday) attention time travels back half a century to the street through Beamish’s 1900s town where vehicles from the museum’s collection will assemble in their finery.
The festival reaches its climax with Power from the Past over the weekend of May 29 to 31 when road steam engines, cars and motorcycles will trundle around the museum’s extensive site.
The narrow-gauge railway in the 1900s Pit Village will also be in operation while a Morris display in the 1950s Town will recall a time when few road journeys came without sighting of a chirpy car with charismatic curves. Morris Minors were everywhere!
Over the final weekend, in the Masonic Hall in the 1900s Town, there will be a display of some of Beamish’s transport-related photographs.
Visitors will also be invited to write a poem commemorating the forthcoming 50th anniversary of the opening of Rowley Station at the museum, with the winning poems to be read aloud at special celebrations on July 25 and 26.
Travelling even further back in time, Beamish’s Georgian Waggonway will be in operation during the festival, a reminder of the birth of the railways.
Visitors can experience a steam ride behind Puffing Billy, an exact replica of the original locomotive built by William Hedley in 1813.
Paul Foster, Beamish events manager, said: “The Festival of Transport is the perfect event for transport lovers and enthusiasts.
“From static vehicle displays to being able to ride on a number of visiting vehicles, as well as the museum’s fleet of buses and trams, this promises to be a fantastic event.”
It will be a nostalgia ride for some, an exhilarating journey into the unknown for youngsters.
Daytime events are included in the museum admission and are free to Beamish Unlimited Pass holders and Friends of Beamish members. For full details of opening dates and times, visit the Beamish website.