The Red Wheel Programme – Marking our Transport Heritage


A major new initiative will be launched later this year to commemorate Britain’s rich and globally important legacy in the development of transport.

The Red Wheel Programme will mark hundreds of sites of special historic interest with a distinctive Red Wheel plaque and will be administered by The Transport Trust, the hub of the transport preservation and restoration movement in Great Britain.

To place each Red Wheel plaque in historical and geographical context, each carries links to a dedicated website - www.transportheritage.com - which will comprehensively set out the history and importance of locations and individuals.

Just as transport linked towns and villages to generate economic prosperity, the internet will link each Red Wheel plaque to educate, inform and enthuse the nation.

The scheme will be structured by counties, each managed by a Red Wheel County Co-ordinator, with sites identified by learned societies, historians and enthusiast groups.

There is much work to be undertaken – a relatively small number of locations are currently within the public gaze, yet there are many of great, perhaps greater, historical importance that should be awarded recognition. The sites will include locations such as Roman roads, coaching inns, canal aqueducts, or aerodrome buildings yet, equally, there are locations that need to be marked for the benefit of future generations where physical evidence no longer survives.

The Red Wheel Scheme will be launched in time to play its part in the 2012 London Olympics, a global event which will focus not only on sporting excellence, but also on the recording and promotion of our national cultural heritage.

The Red Wheel sits naturally at the heart of the cultural objectives associated with the Olympic Games and will leave an enduring legacy, highlighting the importance of science and engineering to our past history, and to the nation’s future.