The wonder of the internet: Gateshead 10 and the Forcett coach.

Below: I was recently trawling the Internet looking for background information or any new photographs of trams/locomotives/rolling stock in the Beamish collection when under the search 'Grimsby & Immingham' this picture turned up. It was taken by Bill Wright on the 18th October 1965 from a train passing through Clay Cross. As has been seen on these pages before, for some time in the 1960s G&I No.26 was stored there following its withdrawal from service on the Grimsby & Immingham Electric Railway in 1961. It was, of course, previously Gateshead 10, one of a number of similar cars sold in 1951 when the system closed. 26 was listed by the British Transport Commission (BTC) as of national significance and was earmarked for a future railway museum of the nation's railway (and transport) history. Clay Cross served as a store for many of the items for this collection (later to become part of the NRM/National Museum of Science & Industry) as well as being the National Tramway Museum's off-site store.

What is terrific about this photograph is that not only does it show 26, but next to it, under the tarpaulin, is the body (on underframe) of the Forcett Coach! This shows clearly that it was mounted on its original underframe but sans W irons, axleboxes and wheelsets. This adds to our knowledge of the Forcett Coach (No.179) at this period of its life.

This leads me to a thought - 2013 is the 40th anniversary of the Beamish Tramway and the workshop schedule is planned to allow for some work to ensure Gateshead 10 is in fine condition for some planned celebrations. This will inevitably involve a repaint. It is therefore possible that we might be able to consider running 10 in BR green as 26 once again...
There has been some suggestion of this idea before, and ideally we would be looking for sponsorship to help towards the costs of the repaint which would be timed to allow for a debut at the 2012 Power from the Past event on September 1-2 2012 and then some running through the autumn in that guise. This really is a maybe but it would seem to be an ideal opportunity to recreate this lost identity. If anyone is in favour of this, and could even offer some support, then they can contact me via the comments section on the blog...

As 26 it would need to have the advert boards and destination boxes removed as well as the repaint into green. A finishing touch would be to fit lamps on the roof at each end as carried on the G&I. Such a repaint would form the basis of the later repaint into Gateshead livery - rather like the process that was carried out on Blackpool 31 when it temporarily masqueraded in its engineering car guise as No.4.