The Picture in Time machine ends up in Blackpool again for our latest image with the year being 1974 and the tram Brush Railcoach 622.
This view is taken outside Rigby Road Depot on 5th September 1974 and shows 622 waiting for its next duty with both destination blinds set for Manchester Square following its previous use. The tram is carrying the Half Green/Half Cream livery with Orange trolley tower.
Built as 285 in 1937 the tram entered service during late July with key milestones in its career seeing the fitting of single indicators in 1975 and then 622 received a pantograph during 1991. But probably its biggest “claim to fame” was when it became the first single deck tram in Blackpool to ever receive an all over advert when it was painted in the iconic Tigeriffic livery for Blackpool Zoo in 1975 (a design it kept until 1980). Withdrawn from service at the end of the 2009 season the tram was never officially preserved (joining the LTT collections as a source of spare parts) and can now be found at Anchorsholme Academy where it once again carries the Tigeriffic livery.
Photograph by Alasdair MacFarlane
Gorgeous. Imagine a Brush Car in this condition next to a restored 663 with Orange Tower & Set 5. #lineup
Indeed. The railcoaches looked their best as designed.
I agree with Ken they were smartest in the original design with double destination indicators, trolley poles, roof lights, half-drop windows and original windscreens.
I think all the heritage trams with pantographs look awful and out of place.
Apart from the operational practicalites, it is good that Blackpool are able to showcase a mix of the different current collectors, mainly appropriate to the physical condition of the tram. A modernised car such as 631 or 723 or the Centenaries just would not look right with a trolley pole (the one arguable anomaly is Twin 2 in original livery, but a twin with a trolley would be an operation nightmare on anything other than loop-loop services). After all, some have now carried pans for almost half their total lives!
Set 2 is in its final physical condition though so a pan is quite correct!
But it keeps them running. There was a move to convert everything which never happened. Heritage with pantographs is common abroad, its a necessary evil you have to live with. Don’t forget Blackpool’s Trams have carried them since the first conversions in the mid 1980s.