Transport Museum

[Graham]

Bear with me if this has already been covered but there used to be a Museum of Military Transport in the North (Beswick?) but had to close. What happened to the exhibits and are there plans to reopen the museum? I ask because I am interested in non - fighting machines especially motorbikes. Is there another museum covering this subject?

[snowtracdave]

Do you mean the now defunct MOT at Beverley ?

[woa2]

Do you mean the now defunct MOT at Beverley ?

 

I know several vehicles at Beverley ended up with the REME reserve collection in Bordon (rumour has it now due to move again). Some vehicles were privately owned and went back to their owners.

[Graham]

Yes I do mean the Museum at Beverly. It would be good to have a museum on this topic. Graham

[Snapper]

They went via the biggest ever peacetime military convoy to Donington depot, which is in Shropshire or somewhere like that. Some went elsewhere. The private stuff went back and some bits must have been sold. I was there on the last day. The army came with a phalanx of Oshkosh HETs and Atkinson METs and loaded the lot up. It was a freezing cold January day. I took hundreds of snaps and did a story of sorts for CMV. I missed the convoy bit, but had a good time sitting in an Oshkosh and getting bussed around in a Scammell Commander. The army were very hospitable, but I blotted my copybook by asking a bloke about a very tatty pith helmet which was in a pile of rubbish. He rebuked me about it being a valuable museum artefact. By far the most interesting place was the workshops, which looked ransacked, but were just in a terrible mess. I suspect the founders and volunteers of the museum would have been crying into their Bovril. It was funereal in atmosphere. I'm meeting Andy Robertshaw this evening at a WFA talk and I'm hoping to get him to do one of our interviews. So I'll ask him what is happening. He is curator of the RLC museum where all the MT records are. Small point - I'm not name dropping. He doesn't know me from Adam, I'll just cold call him during the raffle.

 

MB