Around the World in 18 Trams: Boston 3680

Posted on Thursday 7 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

From Europe to the United States of America for our tour of world trams. The system we are looking at today is that in Boston.

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In Pictures: Nottingham Express Transit in November

Posted on Wednesday 6 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

A small pictorial from Nottingham Express Transit in late November with well patronised trams in service. Nottingham’s Winter Wonderland is now in full swing with a Christmas Market and ice skating amongst the activities you can enjoy in the city centre and of course the best way to get there is to hop on a tram! Peter Narramore with the photos.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Tram Loans: Manchester L53

Posted on Wednesday 6 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

It is a tram which is currently on static display in Bury but head back a few years and it made not one, but two visits to Beamish – it is Manchester Eades Reversible Horse Tram L53.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Events: Douglas Bay Horse Tramway 140th Anniversary

Posted on Wednesday 6 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

The next entry into our special series of events which have taken place over the past 15 years is another once which has happened fairly recently – the 140th Anniversary of the Douglas Bay Horse Tramway.

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In Pictures: Cambridge Horse Tram 7

Posted on Tuesday 5 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

The restoration of Cambridge Horse Tram 7 is continuing to make progress at the Ipswich Transport Museum as these latest photos from Stephen Cobb show.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Tram Loans: Blackpool Open Top Balloon 706

Posted on Tuesday 5 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Probably one of the most unexpected but successful loans to have happened in the last 15 years, in November 2010 Blackpool Open Top Balloon 706, more commonly known as Princess Alice, visited the Heaton Park Tramway for their Blackpool Event.

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Around the World in 18 Trams: Basel BVB 485

Posted on Tuesday 5 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Still in Europe today we are heading into Switzerland for an image from Basel of the city operator Basler Verkehrs-Betriebe (BVB), who mainly work the urban routes.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Tram Loans: Glasgow 1068

Posted on Monday 4 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

2013 was a significant year for the tramway at Beamish, as it was the 40th anniversary of the first trams running. To mark the occasion a couple of trams were loaned to the museum one of which was Glasgow 1068 from Crich, a tram which had only been returned to service temporarily the previous year for the Glasgow commemorations in Derbyshire.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Events: Withdrawal of Metrolink’s T68s and T68As

Posted on Monday 4 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Not all major events over the past 15 years have been special events as such but nonetheless events of this kind have still been a significant aspect of what has happened since we started off in 2002. One of the most key events was the withdrawal of the Manchester Metrolink T68 and T68As as upon their withdrawal they became the first of the UK second generation tram classes for this to have happened to.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Tram Loans: Oporto 273

Posted on Sunday 3 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

The second in this series is probably the least successful tram loan of the past 15 years – that of Oporto 273.

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In Pictures: Testing underway on Bilston Road

Posted on Sunday 3 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

As previously publicised Bilston Road was reopened to traffic from Saturday 2nd December following the completion of the major track relay project between Priestfield and The Royal. Although the road is reopened this doesn’t mean that trams are running back to Wolverhampton St George’s just yet as the next week will see commissioning and driver training along this section, which hasn’t been in use since June. The first major testing along the line started on Sunday 3rd December.

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Around the World in 18 Trams: Gent 39

Posted on Sunday 3 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

We are back in Europe for today’s instalment of Around the World in 18 Trams as we visit Gent in Belgium.

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This week on British Trams Online

Posted on Sunday 3 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

We have two different types of Photo Gallery for you this week, as we head overseas and also look back to our launch year in 2002:

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Tram of the Year – voting now open!

Posted on Sunday 3 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Voting is now open for the British Trams Online Tram of the Year 2017 contest with 15 nominees across the four categories. Thank you to everyone who submitted nominations, we have now looked at all of these and come up with the final shortlists and you can now put your final vote in to see what walks away with the accolade in January.

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In Pictures: Flexity 017 makes its journey to Blackpool!

Posted on Saturday 2 December 2017 by Andrew Waddington

On the evening of Friday 1st December, Blackpool welcomed its newest tram – Flexity 017. This is of course one of the two new trams which have been ordered from Bombardier to supplement the existing fleet in anticipation of the new extension to North Station, for which more trams will be needed to provide the core timetabled service. We will cover 017‘s arrival in more detail at a later time, but for now we focus on its journey from Hull following arrival in the UK.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Tram Loans: Blackpool Marton 31

Posted on Saturday 2 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Just how many trams have gone on loan over the past 15 years? Actually its quite a surprising number! In this new series we will be looking at all the trams which have gone on operating loans during this period (we say all, we think we’ve covered everything!). As it is operating loans we don’t include those trams which have gone on display (a la Grimsby & Immingham 14 to Immingham Docks etc.) and even if things didn’t quite go according to plan during the loan it is included. We have also taken an on loan to mean something which is not at what we would consider its permanent home tramway at the time so sorry Bolton 66 and Stockport 5 your loans in Blackpool aren’t included! The first in the series is probably the tram which has travelled the most distance for its loan with two trips to Blackpool and one visit to Heaton Park included – Blackpool Marton 31.

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British Trams Online at 15 – Events: East Anglia Transport Museum London Event

Posted on Saturday 2 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

As part of our 15th anniversary celebrations (have we mentioned we are 15?!) this special series will be taking a look at 15 of the key events which have taken place in the past 15 years. Throughout the series we will be looking at a variety of events both at heritage tramways and also as tramways and lines have opened but it is not intended to be a “Top 15” as we quickly realised that would be almost impossible – I couldn’t even agree with myself as to what should be on the list! In order to provide some variety a lot of different tramways are included and we have probably cheated with some of the entries, and they are most definitely in no particular order. In this edition we head to Suffolk for a fairly recent event – the London Event at the East Anglia Transport Museum.

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Around the World in 18 Trams: Hong Kong 76 & 150

Posted on Friday 1 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Ever since British Trams Online started we have only shown trams either operated or built within the British Isles but as part of our 15th anniversary celebrations we are trying something a bit different as we take a look at trams from around the world in this new pictorial series. Currently this will only be during December 2017 but if you want to see more of this please let us know and we will see if the series continues into 2018. For the first edition of this series we head to Hong Kong for an image of two of their iconic double deck trams.

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For sale! 15 Midland Metro T69s

Posted on Friday 1 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

The end of the line has been reached for 15 of the 16 Midland Metro T69s with the news that Transport for West Midlands are to sell them by auction early in 2018. Withdrawn between 2006 and 2015 the T69s were replaced in service by the Urbos 3 trams but were not disposed of at the time and were eventually moved to Long Marston for further storage. But now the decision has been made to sell the trams on.

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New timetable proposed for Tramlink

Posted on Friday 1 December 2017 by Gareth Prior

Anyone who has observed the service on London Tramlink in recent weeks probably can’t helped to have noticed that following on from the speed restrictions the service has become less regulated with trams on the same branch often bunching rather than being at regular intervals. Now in order to try and provide a more reliable service Transport for London are proposing a new timetable which would see a reduction in the service frequency on most lines along with a new service pattern.

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