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Twenty trams rumbled through a sleeping Aberdeen early today for the Sea Beach to be marshalled on the private tram track at the Links for a gigantic funeral pyre. By design, the 'funeral' of the city's trams was private, and only a few mourning ratepayers were among the handful of spectators who saw them cremated. Ten trams were drawn up in a double line when the first match was set to the paraffin-soaked No 137, one of the old-type models, at 12.45 am. Ironically, an employee of Bird's Commercial Motors, Stratford-on-Avon, the firm which has bought the Aberdeen fleet of forty trams for scrap, had to borrow a match from an Aberdeen ratepayer to set the first tram alight!
More trams were brought from the Queen's Cross depot to add fuel to the fire. They travelled to the Castlegate under their own power, and for the last sad run down Constitution Street they were goaded to destruction by a breakdown lorry. Furnishings, fittings and windows had been taken out at the depot. The crisp morning sky at the Beach was lit up as the flames licked up the stairways and spread along the double line of trams. Just to make sure that the fire did not get out of hand, a fire brigade unit stood by. Residents of Constitution Street who had been wakened by the steady rumble over the tracks sensed that the trams were on their last journey. A few got up, dressed, and went to see the spectacle of controlled destruction. More joined them as the blaze grew fiercer. One woman said she had missed the ceremonial farewell to the trams on May 3rd and had decided to attend their funeral at the Beach.
When the fire has burned itself out and the skeletons are cool, employees of the Stratford firm will begin cutting them up today for scrap. The latest equipment is at hand to make a quick job of dismantling. There is an electromagnetic crane to lift the scrap and a powerful baling machine to pack the scrap into handy 2cwt bales. Scrap steel will go to Motherwell and the non-ferrous metals to Stratford. As soon as the skeletons are cleared off the tracks, the second and final batch of twenty trams will make the journey of no return to the Links. An inglorious end to Aberdeen's faithful cars, but a spectacular, flaming finale. The Stratford firm will later remove the last vestige of Aberdeen's tramway system - six miles of overhead copper wire.
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©Andy Taylor. Last updated 28 Nov 2000.