In this edition of Picture in Time we are back in Blackpool – or Fleetwood if you want to be completely precise – with an image of one of the much maligned, but vital, Centenary Cars.
The date is 13th June 1992 and this photo shows Centenary 646 in the standard green and cream livery – with half side advert for the Sealife Centre – standing at the old unloading stop, and now home of the Fleetwood Ferry platform, on Bold Street. The destination blind has already been changed, ready for its return trip the full distance of the tramway to Starr Gate.
646 is the only of the eight strong class of Centenary Cars to have been scrapped with it meeting its maker having been vandalised whilst stored in the open but in happier times it was delivered to Blackpool on anniversary day, 29th September 1987 before entering service at the start of December of the same year. It then became the third of the trams to be rebuilt from original condition and was finally withdrawn on the last day of the old Blackpool Tramway on 6th November 2011.
Photograph by Ralph Oakes-Garnett