News Release - 3rd November 2005
Museum plans for the future of plans from the past!
Following a recent grant award from the MLA West Midlands (the regional council for museums, libraries and archives), The Transport Museum, Wythall has purchased a 'large format' scanner to enable the digital conservation of its extensive collection of technical drawings.
The Museum, which is operated by the Birmingham and Midland Motor Omnibus Trust (BaMMOT), has in its possession two particular collections of technical drawings. Firstly drawings from Metro-Cammell, which passed to the Museum when the company ceased bus manufacture. Secondly a large collection of drawings from Midland Red (BMMO Co Ltd), who in addition to being the largest British bus operator outside London, for many years manufactured their own vehicles and were pioneers of many technical innovations.
During the last year a start has been made on cataloging these drawings, and it is intended to make the catalogue available to enable preservation groups, historians, libraries etc., to access this information. At present BaMMOT is concentrating on scanning drawings of vehicles in its own collection, as this should make restoration of vehicles easier, when parts need to be fabricated.
The earliest drawings date from 1914 and apart from drawings of vehicles that were actually built there are also many drawings produced for tendering purposes -including an 8 wheel trolleybus! A small number of drawings have been digitally cleaned, and reduced to 4mm scale for use by modelmakers. These are available from the Museum shop at nominal prices.
As the collection amounts to over 6,000 drawings, it is expected that the scanning and cataloging will take some considerable time to complete.
