When the Sunderland tram system closed in 1954, a number of tram bodies escaped the usual fate of burning in a scrapyard, instead finding a new use as football changing-rooms. After a spell on a football field, the lower saloon of No.16 was moved to Westwood Farm, Low Warden, near Hexham, Northumberland, where it spent the next 30-odd years as a tool-shed and apple store. The body was rescued by Beamish North of England Open-Air Museum in 1989 as a potential restoration project.