The bulk of the construction work – or that which can be done anyway – has now been completed along Talbot Road in Blackpool allowing the end of the road closest to Wilkinson’s to be reopened to two way traffic for first time in serval months. Line painting has been taking place and the road surface – albeit now with tram tracks installed – probably hasn’t looked this good for quite some time. It’s just a shame that it won’t be until 2020 at the earliest that trams actually get to use the extension.
Bus approaching along the tram tracks! The top end of Talbot Road by Wilkinson’s. The tracks can be seen here curving towards the entrance of the store where they then stop waiting for the demolition of the building and construction of a new terminus.
Meanwhile down at the other end of the line by the Promenade tramway and newly laid concrete is being removed already. Quite why this is being done is unclear. (Both Photographs by Peter Dockerty, 5th March 2019)
But wasn’t it an avoidable nonsense that the Wilko store has still not been pulled down – in other words that the demolition of the building was not programmed in to take place DURING or BEFORE the construction of the new tramway? Oh dear stick-in-the-mud Britain – never able to think ahead!! I suppose when the planning for this just a half-mile of new tramway itself took eight years one shouldn’t have been surprised!!
Entirely reasonably, WILKO are most reluctant to vacate the premises until their new store is ready to open.
Ask not why they are still there, but why they are not yet able to move elsewhere. “blame” lies not with the tramway project managers but the constructors of the Houndshill extension…
It was programmed in but the new site is behind schedule.
2020? What is the problem – it was supposed to in operation for Easter 2019? Sad to see another place with unused new tracks ready to run, like Wolverhampton. But this is Britain and we never get anything up and running on time – look at Crossrail, the Goblin Line and the Great Western main line electrificiation.
The problem is there isn’t a terminus as has been reported hundreds of times.
Surely the real question is who was going to benefit fron the availability of the rest of the Wilko site, as there was clearly room to run to the side of the station.
It’s no secret/conspiracy or whatever you’re hinting at; it is planned to be a Holiday Inn Hotel.
A simple answer to mikestone. All those passengers given an easier and level transfer from the Station! Original plans involved not only the ramp but also escalators partially in an open environment to access the Trams terminating in a street environment. I do not jest this was according to presentation by the then Regeneration Officer for Blackpool to an FTS meeting. You know the department that sponsored that advert on 762.
Years back, when monorails, moving pavements, minitrams on concrete tracks and the like were fashionable, it was said of tramways that, unlike the above systems which had to be finished completely before operation, tramlines could be opened bit by bit as sections were completed, even having temporary termini before the line was finished completely This could be done at Blackpool with what already exists. But it doesn’t happen now, not even to guided busways.
A temporary terminus was in the plan but it just doesn’t fit, you can’t turn a Flexity without blocking Dickson Road due to the crossover positions etc.