A UNIQUE Pollard & Sons electric tram was formally handed over to the Isle of Wight Steam Railway (IoWSR) on October 18 by Coun Dave Stewart, leader of Isle of Wight Council.
The tram had once operated back and forth along Ryde Pier on the Isle of Wight.
The single-deck standard gauge car is understood to date from 1911 (built on the underframe of an earlier Starbuck Car & Wagon Co tram) and worked on thehalf-mile pier tramway until displaced by Drewry diesel vehicles in 1927.
Upon withdrawal the tram body spent the next 50 years in use as a holiday chalet in Brighstone, and even a chicken coop, before being bought at auction in 1978 by Bernard Pratt, a councillor and lecturer at Isle of Wight College.
Read more in the December issue of The RM – on sale now!
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