The Hannover Tram Museum, Wehmingen III.
There's also an unelectrified connecting line here, leading to a nearby railway line, and some reserve tracks with lots of old trams waiting for renovation, like the one in the distance.
This Kassel streetcar was repainted with Warsaw's livery for a movie.
Selected vehicles from the collection were doing round trips on the museum line. They started from this Viennese-style "tram stop".
This car is quite special: it's a normal-gauge version of the Esslingen GT4, in a bidirectional make. I believe only 8 were built like this, for Neunkirchen, which has also closed its tramsystem since.
One of the driver's cabs...
... and the interior of the car.
Strangely this GT4 produces a different riding noise than the ones in Stuttgart (or in its "second-hand" homes Augsburg... or Nordhausen... or Arad), probably due to the different motorisation.
Another "Aufbauwagen", this time from Düsseldorf.
A DÜWAG GT6, also from Düsseldorf. A living piece of tram history. I wish we had one of these here in Budapest, too :)
The tram parade continued with the Potsdam works car towing the Magdeburg "Tatra-wagon".
After the DÜWAG driving school...
... came this diesel loco, originally built for Hannover...
... and this *don't know what's it called in english* (self-propelled track-maintenance vehicle?) from Frankfurt am Main.
The glorious tramway system of Vienna was represented by this type M streetcar.
A "Reko-Wagen" of Berlin was also taking part in the parade and the round-trips. This fella looks like quite old, and although it was produced on paper as a renovation of a pre-war streetcar, in reality it was a new build in 1969.
The "old-school" driver's cab of the car...
.. and a stylish ticket puncher.
The circle museum line is about 3 kilometers long, and was completed recently, I believe. It runs in a forest also belonging to the former mine plant which now acts as the museum. Next to the tracks you can see old ruber-tyred works cars...
... tramcars in one or more pieces...
... and more gems (here: Bremerhaven 79, another DÜWAG "Grossraumwagen") hiding in the bushes. It was like the enchanted forest in a tram-freak's dream :)
I end this report with a 1941 Schörling "vacuum cleaner", used to clean the groove of the tracks in Bremerhaven. As you can see, at the time we were leaving, the Sun started to shine...
The Hannoversches Strassenbahn Museum is an interesting place. The sight of some old streetcars rusting on the open air, and the vast mass of vehicles waiting for renovation might seem disturbing, but don't forget that this is a voluntary operation working under narrow circumstances. As for myself I'd like to thank the organisers for the interesting day in the museum, and wish all the luck to them!
The website of the museum can be found
here:
http://www.wehmingen.de/englisch/