At the weekend I wrote a new Wikipedia article about Transperience.
Transperience was a museum that I was aware of when I was younger but I had never had chance to visit during the short time it was open. It was essentially an open-air museum of passenger transport, with some simulators as well as a working 1km tram line and a couple of trolleybuses. There was also an auditorium and some workshops were its preserved vehicles were maintained.
The museum was built on the site of Low Moor station, south of Bradford. The station used to be at the junction of the Caldervale Line, between Bradford and Manchester, with the Spen Valley Line which ran through Cleckheaton, Heckmondwyke and Liversedge. The station, and the whole Spen Valley Line, were closed in the 1960s, but the Caldervale Line thankfully remains (otherwise my regular trips to Blackpool would be far more difficult).
Despite being right next to junction 2 of the M606 and easy reach of the M62, and costing £11.5million to build, the park closed in 1997, having been open a little over 2 years. Unfortunately it couldn’t attract enough visitors to be viable, and was £1million in the red by the time it was taken over by administrators. The land was mostly sold off to a private developer and is now an industrial estate. The route of the tram line now forms the first part of the Spen Valley Greenway, a footpatch and cycle route which follows the route of the Spen Valley Line. Some buildings, like the auditorium remain, but overgrown and derelict.
Interestingly, the site is likely to go full circle. Metro, the public body which manages passenger transport in West Yorkshire, has plans to re-open Low Moor station. Its location close to the M606 means it would make a good parkway station, and means that residents of Low Moor and towns in the Spen Valley won’t have to travel into central Bradford or Leeds to catch the train. It’s likely that the few remaining relics of Transperience will be tarmacked over by the new station’s car park. The station is proposed for 2012, subject to planning permission and funding.
It’s a shame that I never had chance to visit Transperience, as it seemed like an interesting museum that suffered from poor marketing and a lack of focus. Thankfully, museums such as the Crich Tramway Village have succeeded where Transperience failed.
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March 12, 2010 at 12:41
If you ever go to Crich – you might see my Dad conducting on the Trams. I’ve never been there myself though.
June 16, 2010 at 19:54
I’d never even heard of Transperience before reading about it in a book about the calder valley line. Now I’ve managed to join the dots and made the connection with that odd auditorium building I see from the train window.
It does sound an interesting place, and shame I had never visited. Google streetview makes the whole park site very interesting indeed!