Dundee Museum of Transport has today announced their successful bid for the Maryfield Tram Depot after four years of campaigning. The category B listed building has been marketed by Scottish Water since 2005 and has been on the agenda for the group since negotiations began in 2010. The organisation now aim to begin a funding drive after which the group will restore the building to its former glory and relocate from their current premises by the end of 2017.
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| Jimmy McDonell outside the Maryfield Tram Depot. Photo: Alan Richardson |
Dundee Museum of Transport’s chairman, Jimmy McDonell said: “We are thrilled that we have succeeded in our mission to secure the depot for use as our permanent home and we thank Scottish Water for making the right decision and also to all the support we have received from Dundee City Council, MP’s, businesses and the local community.”
“The news also came on the day that we received a full-sized licensed replica of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang for a long-term display so it puts meaning to the saying that good things come in two’s”
The museum opened its current premises in April to critical acclaim, receiving a 3-star rating from Visit Scotland and rocketing into the top 5 visitor attractions in the Dundee area on review site TripAdvisor. Led solely by volunteers from the local community, the organisation focuses on the restoring, preserving and displaying transport-related memorabilia and vehicles, including Dundee’s last remaining horse drawn tram from a garden in Perth earlier this year.
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| Chitty Chitty Bang Bang licensed replica which is now on display until next year. Photo: Alan Richardson |
Discussing the future of the museum, committee member Matthew Jackson said: “We are pressing on with our sustainable business study which was funded by the Historic Lottery Fund and alongside our consultants will include a refresh of the feasibility study to produce a quality plan for Maryfield as we progress towards the next stage of funding”
“This is an exciting time for Dundee and our project and we will be looking to consult with the local community as soon as possible to get the very best out of this excellent opportunity.”
National Express, the museum’s main sponsor also welcomed the sale. Managing director Phil Smith said: “I’m extremely pleased that Dundee Museum of Transport’s bid for Maryfield Tram Depot has been successful - it’s great news for this excellent visitor attraction. Transport is an important part of Dundee's past, present and future. I wish them the very best of luck with planning their move into this fantastic historic building.”
Dundee Museum of Transport's popular coffee shop and tearoom is next to the reception desk in our main exhibition hall.
In addition to tea we have a wide range of coffee from very mild to very strong along with coffee shots, flavoured water, fizzy drinks, snacks, sandwiches and filled rolls.
We also have a small shop selling souvenirs including mugs, a good selection of books and fleece jackets with our logo embroidered on them.
Look forward to seeing you all.
Cat Duthie
DMofT Volunteer
Scottish Water has confirmed that they have received our offer and will be carrying out robust review on offers for the property, which is likely to take a number of weeks, before they make any recommendation as to who the preferred bidder will be.
As always, stay tuned.
Dundee Museum of Transport has been negotiating to purchase this historically important building since 2010. Scottish Water has now set a closing date for offers - 12pm on Thursday 10 July 2014. They claim a developer is interested in the site and that it could be bulldozed for housing. We need as much support as possible to finally secure this building for the future.
With less than four weeks to go until our Official Opening weekend there's a lot going on in and around our premises at Market Mews.
A selection of photographs of all the work being done, and some of the exhibits, has been posted to our Current premises page on the website to wrap up the series dating back to June 2012 when we took possession of the building.
We are really looking forward to finally opening our doors and meeting everyone on Saturday 26 April 2014 at 11am. Form an orderly queue...
Dundee Museum of Transport is delighted to announce that National Express Dundee has become its main sponsor. A number of exciting joint ventures will take place over the coming months and the Museum's main display area will now be known as the National Express Dundee Exhibition Hall.
National Express Dundee announced as Museum’s main sponsor. Dundee Museum of Transport's Chairman Jimmy McDonell (left) with Yvonne Wilson from National Express Dundee holding an old Dundee Corporation ticket machine. Photograph courtesy Alan Richardson.
Chairman of Dundee Museum of Transport Jimmy McDonell said:
“It’s fantastic to have National Express Dundee on board as the main sponsor of our Museum. The whole team has been working extremely hard to establish it as a home for some of the area’s most important heritage and to remember those local pioneers who may have been forgotten over time.
“We’re really looking forward to welcoming the public through our doors. I’m sure people will be delighted to see some of the displays we have for them and we can’t wait to show them off!”
Managing Director of National Express Dundee Phil Smith said: "We are delighted to be entering into this partnership with Dundee Museum of Transport. Not only are they celebrating Dundee and Tayside's 'hidden heritage', they're celebrating the heritage of our own business, displaying some of the vehicles and memorabilia used by the bus company in its former guise as the Corporation. "This new attraction is an excellent boost for the city of Dundee and we are very much looking forward to supporting Jimmy and his team on their opening weekend and beyond." The Museum will house a collection of vintage vehicles, memorabilia and transport-related items some of which relate directly to the main sponsor National Express Dundee when it was owned by Dundee Corporation.
Dundee Museum of Transport will be opening its doors for the first time on Saturday 26 April 2014 from 11am to 4pm. The celebrations continue on Sunday 27 April 2014 from 11am to 4pm which includes National Drive It Day organised by the Scottish Vintage Vehicle Federation.
With a Jazz Band, bouncy castle, stalls, etc this will be a great family weekend. Market Street will be closed and over 150 vehicles, ranging from vintage to military and commercials, will be on display. Refreshments will also be available on both days.
More details about the opening weekend, admission charges and membership packages will be announced nearer the time.
Another busy week for us! The roof has finally be repaired in its entirety and is now watertight again (hurrah!), the majority of the week has been spent on remedial work getting everything back up to standards.
The stairwell leading up to the office block in hall two was extensively water damaged as the heavy rain from a few weeks back somehow managed to make its way through the ceiling and down the walls. It wasn't a pretty sight, hence no photo, but it has all been patched up and was repainted this morning. Phew!
There has been a significant amount of work done behind the scenes and a lot of meetings were had too this week. Many clubs have been in touch recently regarding the opening weekend and our list has been ever-growing! We spent quite a bit of time getting everything we had so far together to create an initial floor plan for the weekend, as well as getting all the necessary man power in place to accommodate you all! (Don't worry, we will definitely have plenty tea's and coffee's for everyone). As soon as we are ready to announce the programme and attending clubs we will announce it on our website and across our social networks. If you are an interested party looking to exhibit during our open weekend or take part in the "National Drive it Day" outing on the Sunday then please get in touch soon as we are running out of space very quickly!
We have also had a few important meetings with some businesses regarding sponsorship and partnership arrangements... We are staying "hush hush" for now!
Progress has also been made with the membership structure and just today we have finished all of the arrangements with how it will work. We are happy to announce that memberships will be available to apply for by the opening weekend and we will shortly (hopefully next week) be providing details about how you can become a member and what the benefits are so stay tuned!
That's all for this week and as ever, stay in touch!
Progress has been continuing smoothly this week. Our website and email is currently being moved to a new hosting provider and this should be completed by early next week. In saying this, if you send an email to any of our team and it bounces then do not worry- just send it later! We will also be looking to provide some exciting features over the next few months on the website, especially when we begin the membership scheme!
The building itself is shaping up well, we have carpeted the reception area and plumbing for the exhibition hall toilets was completed late this afternoon. Work this week has slowly been moving towards vehicle restoration with the horse drawn tram and Dundee Corp. 127 receiving some work.
Our Wikipedia article also went online this week and you can check the news story regarding that here.
Alistair moved into his fancy new archives store and office in Unit 4 on Wednesday and he is very much looking forward to moving everything over the next few weeks- a lot of work lies ahead!
This morning, our official Wikipedia article was published and put into the public domain. You can view the article here.
Jim Elder, the son of our on-site foreman at Market Mews has been working in cooperation with us since late last year to make this happen so we thank him for all the support that he has provided us. As the article is now in the public domain, we will do our best to update it as we continue on our journey but if you have experience with Wikipedia then please do edit it at your own disposal and we will provide the necessary images where appropriate, just give us a quick email when you do!
Work is progressing very well here at Market Mews and our interim target of having the building ready by the end of this month is looking highly likely!
Our office block has just been completed today, our archive store in unit 4 of the building had its mezzanine level completed last week and starting from Monday we will have professional roofers in to repair some leaks that we have been dealing with since the harsh weather hit us over the past few months.
Once the building has been completed we will be looking towards the display side of things and although we have a general layout at the moment, we will be looking at using as much of the public exhibition space as efficiently as we can to create a fantastic user experience in our temporary museum.
As part of our preparations for the opening weekend we have also successfully arranged to have the entire Market Street closed for the duration of the event. We will provide more information closer to the time but it will definitely be an event not to miss, we have received many emails from clubs up and down the country who have stated their intentions to come and show off their vehicles!
Thank you to everyone for their continued support, we surpassed 750 likes on Facebook last week which is absolutely fantastic- it's this kind of community spirit and drive that keeps us going.
Over the next few weeks we'll be posting more photos, providing information regarding membership, and seeking volunteers so as always, keep in touch!
DUNDEE - Monday 16th December 2013
From left: Jack Reilly and Jimmy McDonell
Dundee Museum of Transport (DMofT) announced on Saturday that their current premises at Market Mews will be opening to the public on Saturday 26th April 2014 after nearly four years of planning. The announcement came during a book launch aboard the Frigate Unicorn for Jack Reilly’s book, “The Caledon Shipyard” which was in partnership with the museum. The book has generated significant interest which tells the story of the Caledon Shipyard from his mass collection of images and information that he collected whilst working there from the 1950s onwards. Its launch, which was host to ex-Lord Provost John Letford who was also a worker in the shipyard, was an overwhelming success with all available copies at the event sold out.
From left: Stewart Hosie MP, Marjorie Knowles, Murray Thomson, Norman Robertson, Jimmy McDonell, John Letford and Joe Fitzpatrick MSP
Chairman of the museum, Jimmy McDonell explained his delight surrounding the book launch,
“Today has been a fantastic event, which superseded our expectations. We are thrilled to be able to announce the opening of the museum so that we can re-live the rich transport heritage that the Dundee area has to offer”
Their current premises will act as a temporary museum whilst work behind the scenes will continue to acquire and develop the Maryfield Tram Depot as a permanent location for DMofT. Jimmy also announced at Saturday’s book launch that the initial stage for Heritage Lottery Funding has been reached today, with the submission of an enquiry and it is hoped that the outcome will be received by the new year.
Dundee Museum of Transport is now being promoted on preserved Ailsa bus 273 WTS273T and here she is lined up outside our Market Mews premises showing off the new nearside advertisement.
As this bus regularly attends rallies across Scotland it will help to spread the word about Scotland's newest Transport Museum.
On Saturday 21 September 2013 DC Thomson publication The Courier carried a three-page feature about Dundee Museum of Transport in their Weekend magazine in the lead-up to the opening of our temporary premises at Market Mews, Dundee.
Click on the images below to view larger copies.
There have been a number of additions to our photograph galleries and premises pages.
Photos of the recently acquired Volvo B10L Wright Liberator P122KSL (122/7122) Travel Dundee have been added to the Exhibits gallery.
Photos of the recently delivered Carolina Port power station electric locomotive built by BHT in 1908 have been added to the Restorations projects gallery.
More photographs of the on-going restoration of Daimler Fleetline PYJ461L (161) Dundee Corporation have been added to the Restorations projects gallery.
Work has been continuing on our temporary premises at Market Mews, Dundee. The front exhibition hall is now virtually complete and a number of vehicles and exhibits were on display for our most recent preview event.
A lot of work has been done on the second exhibition hall and office space. The walls have been cleaned, filled and painted and the floor has received a first coat of protective paint.
Most of our attention is currently focussing on the third unit (of four) which will primarily be used for vehicle storage and maintenance.
Despite the cold weather work has continued apace on our temporary premises at Market Mews, Dundee.
The painting of the front exhibition hall is almost complete, the cafe area has been painted and carpeted, toilets have been installed and the boardroom fitted out.
To see the latest set of photographs visit our current temporary premises page.
Following our recent plea for volunteers to help prepare our temporary premises in Market Mews - see this post - work is now progressing at a rapid rate.
However the more helpers we have the quicker we can open to the public so if you can help please get in touch through our contact page.
We have added a page to our recently updated website tracking the progress made at Market Mews. This will be updated regularly with photographs of the work done by our amazing team of volunteers - click here to see the work done so far.
We are hoping to open to the public early in 2013 so please keep checking back for all the latest news.
Our chairman Jimmy McDonell recently made a plea for more volunteers to help realise a Transport Museum for Dundee.
As announced previously - see this post - we are working towards opening temporary premises and there is still a lot of painting, joinery and plumbing work to be done. We hope to be able to open these premises at the beginning of 2013.
We also have a number of projects pending, including the restoration of the old Carolina Port power station electric locomotive built by BHT in 1908.
We are also making great progress towards securing the old Maryfield Tram Depot in Forfar Road as our permanent home.
Can you help us with preparing our temporary premises or with any of our ongoing preservation projects? If so, please get in touch using any of the methods on our Contact Us page.
Dundee Museum of Transport is pleased to announce that we have acquired temporary premises at Market Mews on the corner of Market Street and Broughty Ferry Road near the centre of the city.
These temporary premises will allow us to display some of the transport-related memorabilia we have already amassed whilst we still pursue our ultimate goal of moving in to the former Maryfield Tram Depot in Forfar Road, Dundee.
Work is already underway on the temporary premises to prepare them for us to be able to move in and open to the public and we are extremely grateful to everyone who have assisted us with this.
As well as the indoor space there is also a lot of outdoor space that may be suitable for vehicle gatherings or other special events.
In the meantime we will continue with our planned events for July and August and hope you will manage to come along and support us.
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