Two of the erstwhile Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust collection of trams are set to find a new home at the East Anglia Transport Museum with news that Blackpool trams Brush Car 290 and Ex-Towing Railcoach 678 will be heading east later this year. A team from the museum recently visited the trams to complete negotiations for their acquisition with preparations for their movement to follow.
As we’ve reported before, the East Anglia Transport Museum have acquired extra land adjacent to the current museum site and part of this will house a new tram depot as well as an extended tramway and to ease the burden on the current operating fleet it has been decided to add some extra trams to the operating fleet (although both will likely require extensive work before they can run having both been stored outside for several years).
The two trams the museum are due to purchase are currently stored at different locations on the Fylde Coast. Brush Car 290 is in undercover storage at Rigby Road Depot (on behalf of the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust) having been moved there in 2015 after three years of display at Pleasure Beach whilst Railcoach 678 is at Wyre Dock where it has been since leaving Rigby Road in late 2011. Both have suffered from spending many years in outside storage and certainly don’t look their best; 678 last ran in 2006 and 290 in 2009 (for one night only!). 678 is currently in a plain black livery after previous advertising vinyls were removed whilst 290 is in a green and cream livery it ended its days on display at Pleasure Beach in.
As well as the trams the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust are also donating tram track to the museum (including pointwork from Blundell Street Depot which had been given to the Trust by contractors during the redevelopment of that site for what is now a stalled housing development).
Details of the exact plans the East Anglia Transport Museum have for the two trams have not been announced but they are expected to make the move to East Anglia later this year from their respective locations. With the EATM currently have four serviceable trams plus Blackpool Marton VAMBAC 11 out of service plus the restorations of Lowestoft 14 and Glasgow 488 making apparent good progress it appears that the coming years could see a varied and impressive tram fleet at Carlton Colville!
Provided there are no last minute hitches in the acquisition of these trams it will leave just Brush 637, Centenary Car 641, Twin Car 673+683 and Balloon 710 at Wyre Dock waiting for a saviour to come to their rescue. The Trust continue to be seeking to dispose of their entire collection after their plans for a visitor attraction in Fleetwood were unable to proceed.
This is good news given there would be little hope of a role for these two cars in Blackpool. It is encouraging that 290 has been selected, as this tram is of historical significance having operated the final run from the old North Station terminus. Hopefully it will regain twin destination blinds and roof windows as it would have had in 1963. Maybe 678 will receive a cream livery to resemble the original twin car colour scheme, unless it undergoes a transformation like sister car 679 – only time will tell.
Of the remaining trams, 637 could prove a useful donor for spare parts, but it has to be hoped that 710 will be provided with a safe home soon and preferably locally if the commitment and money can be mustered to preserve this priceless Balloon. The twin car may prove a useful replacement for fire damaged set 2 should it be decided that there is no value in restoring 272 to service. No doubt, it wouldn’t be inconceivable that 273 could be coupled to T2 were this to make a more viable set. 273 should certainly be a lot less lively, given it still retains the original Railcoach suspension. Any such use to which set 3 could be put must be preferable to disposing of it for scrap. However, any interested parties should not delay. Once it’s gone, it’s gone – forever.
But 637 is privately owned
678 isn’t intended for use so I’m guessing spares (or other use?). Now I wondwer how the Lowestoft single deck would work with EE bogies……….
Sadly despite 678 being the nicest of the 3, it was beyond help in 2004 so it certainly is now!
We know they looked at 710 and deemed it too far gone for them, though they do want a balloon. personally I’d let 702 go there on loan as it should be operable and Heaton Park aren’t doing anything with it at the momentother than letting painters ptactice on it. It would release much needed space for them too.
They also mentiomn any homeless Trams may be accommodated which is interesting. This museum is really setting the standard now.
There is no value in pairing 673 with T2, as 673 would still require the rewiring that 272 needs after the fire, so the workload would be the same electrically. Add to the equation that 673 has been sat outside unused for many years, this would mean there would be much more work (and resources) required to bring it back to operational condition.
As for 710, I think the fact that this was inspected and not selected during this visit speaks volumes about its condition and restorability.
They said 710 was not economical for them. 143 was in much worse condition. Literally ANYTHING can be restored.
I really hope that a home can be found for 710. We must not lose any more Balloons!
Why the obsession with 710? Even if it were scrapped there would still be 21 Balloons plus the two Jubilees, an excessive number which is still vastly over representative.
I really don’t understand this obsession with 710 specifically and balloons in general. There are plenty already safe in preservation and I can only repeat my view that diluting resources by increasing the pool of these relics would serve no purpose. Balloon 710 has no real important significance as far as I can see so why is it deemed so important?
Steve, I wonder if you would be saying scrap them if 20 Trams from your favourite system had survived? Thankfully not everyone is an obviously anti Blackpool as you.
710 is a talking point 30 years on.
Well done and congratulations to EATM. I haven’t been for a long time but I look forward to returning one day and hopefully having a ride on 11, 290, 159 and maybe 678.
To be brutally honest, if the other FHLT trams were scrapped it wouldn’t be a huge loss to preservation. At this point all of them have been stored outside for an extended period and all of them are duplicates of other trams running in Blackpool. I don’t really understand the fascination with 710- there are a LOT of Balloons in preservation and I’m not really sure a brief appearance in a TV soap fourty years ago makes it special.
If EATM really wants a Balloon that’s up to them. But I think they’d be better off directing their efforts towards repatriating a Boat from America. San Francisco have apparently used 605 very little and the Boats are always the most popular trams with the general public whenever they’re used.
The owner of 637 could sell the tram to FTT so that parts of it could be utilised to expedite the restoration of one of their Brush Cars – better than simply allowing it to rot and go to waste (as happened with 716). Given the EATM appear willing to house homeless trams, maybe they would consider sheltering 710 even if they don’t wish to restore it – of course if they were to do so, the tram might well ‘grow on’ them in time and result in a rethink. I find it hard to believe that nobody would be willing at least to offer accommodation for 710 given that Balloon trams are truly priceless and the loss of three already is more than enough. If it turns out to be too far gone for a full restoration to working order, no doubt it could be cosmetically improved for static display just as 671 is to be within the St Helen’s Transport Museum.
Just so that there is no confusion in the future based on this comment, the FTT has no interest in purchasing 637 at this moment in time.
Nostalgic, Do we really need more Brush cars? 3 in Blackpool, 2 at Crich, 1 each Heaton Park and EATM is more than enough! 6 out of 14, 15 if you include 737 is a good ratio.
Thinking about 710, this tram could be used to ‘sell’ the Heritage Tram Service (including Tram Town) if it were acquired by a museum elsewhere in the U.K. for static display. Those interested in riding on a Balloon, upon enquiring, could be signposted to the Blackpool Heritage Trams, this currently being the only place where a ride on such a tram is possible. I expect this happens with 712 in Crich – ‘Where can we ride on one of these?’ Reply: ‘You need to visit Blackpool when the Heritage Service is running – this is their website, etc.’. The more places that can do this, the more customers can be pointed in the direction of Blackpool. Maybe Blackpool Heritage Trams could acquire this tram and present it to a major transport museum, other than Crich, with the expectation that they would direct those interested to Blackpool.
Why? Why should tramway museums always have to revolve around Blackpool? I’m all for co-operation between museums, but shouldn’t the priority of individual organisations with limited funding and volunteers at their disposal, be to get visitors to support them, rather than telling them all to visit Blackpool? By all means have a poster up or something but I struggle to see why places like Crich, Heaton Park or East Anglia should be expected to plug the Blackpool heritage operation!
Nathan, the fascination with 710 is that it’s the most famous Blackpool Tram in the world! Even now people ask the drivers did you kill Alan Bradley? And is the Alan Bradley tram still here. It ought, in an ideal world, to be part of a media display about trams on film.
Static display would be a good idea, if the comment about 710 being too far gone is correct.
In a perfect world it would be trundling up the Prom fully restored, but there’s only so much money to go round and fully restoring 710 would cost tens of thousands if not hundreds of thousands of pounds. That money could go towards returning unique trams like 304, 8, 706 and 732 to service.
With hindsight, 710 might have been best for static display at Crich given it’s supposed notoriety with the general public and that it ran there in 1985 (freeing the strucurally superior 712 to be operational there).
MTMS do have longer term aspirations for 702, but if EATM are keen on having a Baloon, perhaps 708 may be a more likely candidate?
I have to remark that it seems a pity that Granada Studios have not shown any interest in acquiring 710 for the Coronation Street Tour. Let’s not forget that the Studios invested a good deal of money and effort in recreating replica tramcars for the series ‘Lost Empires’ in the 1980s and have more recently had constructed mock Metrolink tram bodies for the infamous crash from the bridge. I’m sure such an acquisition would enhance the experience for visitors, especially as people often enquire about the ‘Alan Bradley’ tram when in Blackpool. Imagine how dismayed many would be, were they to be told that it got scrapped. In the eyes of some it could be viewed, of course most unfairly given it belongs to FHLT , as a black mark against the Tramway.
On the matter of 637, it seems improbable, were it to become unavoidable for this tram to be scrapped, that any organisation owning one or more Brush Cars (there are a few) could not make use of any hard-to-come-by parts on offer. I think it’s reasonable to expect that nobody else would wish to acquire an entire Brush Car given the number already in preservation, but it would seem folly to pass up an opportunity to gain useful parts to help with maintaining these trams currently in preservation, and then later to require specially manufactured parts at great expense, while expecting generous donations to an appeal fund for the same.