Birkenhead can claim to be the historic foundation of street tramways in Britain. 

The very first horse tramway in Europe opened from Woodside Ferry to Birkenhead Park in 1860. 

The first British manufacturer of horse trams, George Starbuck, opened his factory at Cleveland Street, Birkenhead, in 1871 and, as G F Milnes & Co, the company ultimately built hundreds of electric trams until the Birkenhead factory closed in 1902.

In the 1990s Wirral Borough Council sought to commemorate this history by opening a museum and four hundred yards of track and overhead from the Woodside ferry terminal along Pacific Road, having commissioned two specially-built double-deck trams from Hong Kong Tramways, which were tested in Blackpool on arrival in Britain.

The reason for acquiring these bizarre vehicles is obscure.  Though the trams that still operate in Hong Kong are directly derived from British models, they look nothing like any Merseyside originals, and the Hong Kong line is 3ft 6in gauge, so these two had to be built to standard gauge from scratch.  Their only local connections are their historic liveries, one Birkenhead, the other Wallasey, and their numbers, 69 and 70, which continue the numbering of Birkenhead Corporation Tramways.

The Council enlisted the expertise of several volunteer enthusiast groups one of which, the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society [MERSEYSIDE TRAMWAY PRESERVATION SOCIETY. About Us], had spent twelve years restoring the Liverpool “Green Goddess” 869, which now operates at the National Tramway Museum at Crich, Derbyshire.

The Woodside museum line was extended to a depot at Taylor Street, and the MTPS successively restored Birkenhead 20 (built in Birkenhead in 1900), Wallasey 78 (built 1920) and Liverpool 769 (built 1931-32).  The group’s latest project is the restoration Warrington 28 (a hybrid identity based on two originals, the remains of 2 rebuilt to look like 8).

In 2006 National Museums Liverpool loaned Liverpool 245 (a smaller version the Green Goddess design, nicknamed a “Baby Grand”, built in 1938), which had been stored since the Liverpool tram system closed in 1957.  The amount of volunteer work involved to restore it to operation is described here:  245 Restoration Progress Report.

The relationship between the Council and the MTPS was always vulnerable to instability.  Council officers and elected members had only tenuous insights into transport preservation;  the enthusiasts worked determinedly to raise finance to restore and maintain their growing fleet. 

The wheels continued to turn until Covid, after which the Museum failed to recover.  Tram service reopened November 20th 2021 and closed a day later because of trackwork problems.  It reopened on February 26th 2022 and lasted until April 14th.  No trams have operated on the line since.

The Council made an arrangement with a not-for-profit organisation, Big Heritage CIC, which had successfully revived the Western Approaches Museum [Western Approaches] in central Liverpool, and offered £4.5 million of ring-fenced money to expand the Wirral museum to interpret transport history on Merseyside more widely.

This didn’t work, and it’s difficult to discern why.  The funding offer was reduced to £1.5 million and Big Heritage backed away.  The MTPS eventually lost patience and donated their three electric trams to the National Tramway Museum and moved them to Crich in March 2025.

Other vehicles have been transferred elsewhere.  Liverpool horse-tram 43, together with two weather-beaten Douglas horse-trams, is now installed at the Hooton Park Hangars and Trust at Ellesmere Port.  A regauged 1930 Lisbon tram, 730, is now at the Beamish Museum in Co Durham.

The Wirral Transport Museum is left with one remaining genuine operational Merseyside tram, Liverpool 245, the part-restored Warrington hybrid and the two Hong Kong oddities.

In essence, you can’t move a museum, but you can move trams.  The MTPS statement about the move to Crich ends, “While the MTPS were deeply saddened by this move the decision was made in the best interests of the trams, to secure their future and [to] be available for members of the public to use and enjoy.”

It’s difficult to disagree.

A succinct summary of situation can be found at Just what is going on with the Wirral Transport Museum? | British Trams Online News.