The Runaway Tram model in the Information Centre

A beautiful scale model of part of the old tramway linking Warwick and Leamington has been donated to the Visitor Information Centre and is now on display. 

It shows the day in January 1916 when an open-topped double-decker tram ran away down High Street and Jury Street with no driver at the controls. Car 7 had been standing at the terminus outside the Warwick Arms Hotel. The ‘clippie’ conductress, Elsie Haskins, did not know that the driver, Walter Mumford, had left the cab, and she released the rear handbrake. 

The tram gathered speed past the Court House and down Jury Street. It jumped the rails at the curve around the Eastgate arch, smashing into the Castle Arms Hotel at the top of Smith Street, injuring three passengers. But although the barmaid was buried in rubble, she was pulled out unscathed and no one in the pub was injured. 

The detailed model was made by Keith Bolton. Modelling was his hobby. It was started in 1996 and was nearing completion in 2004 when Keith died. It was finished by Dick Hewins, and the family has donated it to the town.