Blackpool’s Flexity2 002 has become the first of the class to be honoured with a name following a ceremony earlier this month at Starr Gate depot. Alderman Edmund Wynne’s name is now carried on the end dashes of the tram – although the decision has not been met with widespread approval from some enthusiasts.
Mr Wynne, who is now 96, was a councillor in Blackpool for 38 years serving as Mayor for a time and he was also the Chairman of the Transport Committee in the late 1950s. It this period in charge of the Transport Committee that has caused the controversy amongst enthusiasts as under his stewardship decisions were taken which led to the abandonment of the inland routes before we were left with just the promenade route we all know and love today. Although on the flip side it could be said that if the decisions to abandon the inland routes hadn’t been taken then we may well have lost the whole system including along the prom.
Nevertheless Blackpool Council have decided that Mr Wynne is worthy of the naming, which took place during a short ceremony within the depot at Starr Gate on Friday 15th February.
The name has been applied on the end of the tram just below the headlights in gold print which is probably not the most ideal of places for the name to be carried but there probably aren’t many other places it could be carried.
I used to live round the corner from Edmund Wynne, who was openly antagonistic towards the tramway in the 1960s. A very strange choice, or is someone being ironic?
If Cllr Wynne was actually anti-tram, naming a tram after him 50 years later shows his policy could not have been more wrong! An amusing joke against the said councillor’s policies.
Would Walter Luff not be a good name for another of the flexities ? It was his vision that kept the tramway open when others all around the UK were closing.
I know, let’s go the whole hog and get someone to name a locomotive “Doctor Richard Beeching”!!