TRAM enthusiasts are celebrating after saving the last remaining tram car from Chester's line from being sold for scrap.

John Murray of Handbridge and Nick Jones of Huntington took on the fight to save the Number 4 tram car after its current home at a railway museum in the Conwy valley, North Wales, was sold for redevelopment.

After appealing to local railway preservation groups, John and Nick succeeded in persuading the Wirral Transport Museum to restore and display the 100-year-old car's platform and will over-see the transportation of the car to its new home in Birkenhead this weekend.

Chester's fleet of green and ivory trams opened in 1903 and operated from Christleton Road and Vicars Cross, along Eastgate Street and then to Saltney via the Grosvenor Bridge.

The service closed in 1930, when the trams were replaced with motor buses - then a new sight on the streets of Britain and seen as more flexible than the electric trams.

John says the importance of preserving Chester's last tram for future generations comes from its unique design.

'The trams were all built to a special narrow body width and track gauge to accommodate Chester's narrow streets, making them the smallest double-decker trams ever built in the UK.

'The city has always been a major transport hub as a centre for coaching, with the railways and more recently buses and cars, so transport is as much a part of its heritage as Roman artefacts.'

With Chester's roads nearing saturation point at peak hours, John says a modern tramway could be a solution to many of the city's highway problems.

'Trams could come back to Chester and would certainly be an asset for getting people out to places like the business park without taking up too much space.

'They had character and were a very practical form of transport because they carry a lot more people than a bus and are more environmentally friendly because they are electric.'

John adds that, whether the people of Chester realise it or not, marks of the tramway still remain on the city's buildings.

'The tracks are still visible at Chester City Transport bus depot and about 24 wire supports still survive on the walls of buildings in the city centre.

'There is a plaque by the support on the side of Virgin Megastores but most people would not notice that the lower support of the Grosvenor Hotel sign which stops the sign blowing away in the wind was once a support for the tram wires.'

Number 4 car was part of Chester's original fleet of double-decker trams built in 1902 and, like many of the original cars, was sold when taken out of service in 1930.

John explained: 'Harry Dibden was a local historian who had worked for the trams and used the tram as a workshop in his garden in Broxton.

'When he died the tram was taken to bits and moved to the Tal-y-Cafn railway museum in the Conwy valley with a view to putting it on display, but this never happened and only the entrance platform remains in a restorable state.'

Now the Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society proposes to put the restored doorway on display alongside preserved trams from Liverpool, Birkenhead and Wallasey.

Parts from the car will also be used by the preservation society to restore a Warrington tram car back to operational condition, meaning that the century-old machinery that once carried Cestrians around the city will again be in use.

John says he and Nick are delighted with the outcome of their campaign: 'We are obviously pleased that such an important part of Chester's heritage will be preserved for future generations to see first hand what people were able to produce in the past.'