The annual Fleetwood Festival of Transport – more commonly known as Tram Sunday – takes place this year on Sunday 15th July, and as usual Blackpool Heritage Tram Tours will be providing a bumper service between Pleasure Beach and Fisherman’s Walk (Ash Street Fleetwood) for the duration of the event. To provide the maximum possible capacity for what is often a very busy event, the Balloon cars feature heavily but a few other trams will also be appearing.
A twenty minute heritage service will be provided between Pleasure Beach and Fisherman’s Walk, using six trams. These should include no less than five Balloon cars – 701, 713, 715, 717 and 723 – plus Standard 147. In addition, a promenade shuttle service is advertised using Box 40 and Boat 600. This duo will solely operate between Pleasure Beach and North Pier – keeping the sole operational Boat car on the lucrative promenade section for the whole weekend.
Three other trams are also expected to be present for the festival itself, with Bolton 66 and Brush car 621 to be displayed on Pharos Street along with a restored Blackpool PD3 bus. Finally, and in a welcome move, the shop tram, Balloon 700, will be stabled at Fisherman’s Walk, so that patrons of the heritage service can easily obtain their heritage tram souvenirs without having to venture to the other end of the town. Items on sale should include Brian Turner’s new book, commemorating 120 years of the Tramroad with the history of the line to Fleetwood, which is sure to be a must-have for many enthusiasts!
After a few gold operating weekends which have seemed a little uninspired, the weekend ahead appears to have been much better thought out, with a few welcome changes and new ideas, plus an interesting tram output on both days, as well as the previously advertised tour with Brush car 623 on Friday 13th July. Hopefully this will tempt more people to support the heritage service, and in turn encourage more events of this calibre in the future!