The Black Country Living Museum.

A few years ago I visited the Black Country Living Museum at Dudley in the West Midlands. I have now put some pictures on Flickr and if anyone would like to have a look this is the first picture in the Photostream :

D2516. Hardware Shop. by Ron Fisher, on Flickr

As well as the street scenes with shops, pub, etc., there are also some shots of narrow boats on the Dudley Canal which is in the museum site.

If anyone is interested to scroll down a bit further, there are also some pictures of classic cars at the Severn Valley Railway's 1960s Transport Day which was on the same weekend.

Hope that they are of interest.

 

This place was well represented in the BBC programme WPC56 which was recently re-run. All series are, I believe, still available on Iplayer.

 

Slightly biased as its my old stamping ground. Fantastic place I'd always recomend a visit, you can get lovely fish and chips there too! I know the sweets shops rather nice but I'd also like to point out Dudley has a rather nice old fashioned sweet shop in the town centre (its about the best thing there at the mo) in Teddy Greys too, well worth a visit.

 

I had a wonderful day at the Black Country Living Museum a few years ago. More recently, I have heard that the trolley bus ride and also the tram line are either closed or can't be depended on to run. This is based on hearsay from friends who have visited and been disappointed. Is that actually true, or just a pair of misrepresentative blips?

 

The trams and trolley bus are closed which takes away a lot of the attraction for wheelie fans. The canal trip's good though.

 

You can thank metal thieves for that, pinching the overhead cables.

 

That is so sad.

 

I'm open to correction from someone who knows the workings of the museum intimately, but I think that the theft came after the systems had been closed down and the thieves knew that they were not energised.

 

I'm also open to correction, but I believe the wires have been re-instated and trolley buses have run since. However I do note that the BCLM web site states "Due to maintenance work on our overheads, the Trolleybuses are not currently in action."

As I understand it, the issue with the trams is more to do with the rails no longer being fit for use. A section of the track near the tram shed had been taken up when I was there last week.

For bus fans, last week's transport was this 'Midland Red'.