As well as preserving a large number of historic Blackpool tramcars, the Blackpool Heritage Trust is also keen to ensure that other items of relevance to the town’s rich tramway history survive for future generations. A recent and noteworthy addition to their collection of artifacts has been the entire collection of drawings of Blackpool trams by Ian Stewart, which he has very generously donated to the Trust.
Ian is a renowned tramway artist whose illustrations have graced many tram books over the years, and such is the detail that they have been used in the restoration of various actual vehicles, whilst some of his collection are housed at both the National Tramway Museum and Glasgow’s Riverside Museum. Now, all of Mr Stewart’s Blackpool tram drawings have been donated to the Blackpool Heritage Trust, in a remarkable act of generosity, and the group will now consider how best to not only preserve this amazing collection, but also to make at least some of these beautiful pictures accessible to the general public. All of Ian’s images are detailed scale drawings with an impressive amount of work having gone into the accuracy of the various liveries, including period advertisements where appropriate, and all show side and end views of the trams. They have been prepared on boards sized 800mm x 520mm.
Absolutely fantastic news. Massive thank you to Ian for this and I’m sure we are all looking forward to the day when we can see some of them. Perhaps a weekend exhibition at Rigby Road sometime?