A few weeks ago we opened nominations for the Tram of the Year 2012 contest and after a couple of weeks we have now come up with a shortlist for this year’s contest – except it’s not very short and we have also come up with a couple of new categories: “Event of
the Year” and “Tramway of the Year”.
2012 has been such a good year for UK trams and tramways that our “expert panel” have had a very difficult time in narrowing down those trams which is why we have had ended up with eight trams on the final shortlist: Birkenhead 20, Blackpool Flexity2 001, Blackpool Boat 236, Blackpool Twin Car 272+T2, Blackpool Brush 623, Glasgow 1068, Grimsby & Immingham 26 and London Tramlink 2554. You can find out why these trams are on the shortlist at http://www.britishtramsonline.co.uk/tramofyear.html with short pieces on each tram to try and help you to make your mind up as to where your vote will go.
The first of our two new categories is “Tramway of the Year” as we seek to find the tramway (either system or museum line) which has provided us with the most excitement in 2012. Four tramways feature on this shortlist: Beamish, Blackpool, Crich and Manchester Metrolink. Again you can find out the reasons why at http://www.britishtramsonline.co.uk/tramofyear.html.
The other category you can vote for is “Event of the Year”. This category is looking for the best tram event which has taken place in the past 12 months either as a special event at a Museum or a key event at one of the operating tram systems. Three items are on this shortlist: Great North Steam Fair- Beamish, Opening of the upgraded Blackpool Tramway, Glasgow 50 – Crich. More details on these are also at http://www.britishtramsonline.co.uk/tramofyear.html.
Thank you to everyone who put nominations forward and rest assured we considered each and everyone before coming up with the shortlist. Hopefully why certain trams missed out are obvious but we are willing to give more reasons as to why your favourite missed out if
you contact us in the normal way.
You can vote for all of this year’s categories at http://www.britishtramsonline.co.uk/tramofyearvote.html and please remember you can only vote once in each category so make your vote count!