Today “Picture in Time” continues its look at photos from the past at Crich and this time we have a line-up of three Blackpool trams in front of the depot.
Of those three trams at this time only one was a permanent member of the national collection and whilst one has returned and now is, the other was just a temporary visitor and is now back in Blackpool (although has a bit of a complicated ownership history that we won’t be going into in this article!). The trio of trams in this photo from left to right are Standard 49, Boat 607 and Balloon 710.
We featured 607 in last week’s edition of this series and know that it was on loan from Blackpool in part exchange for centenary loanees between April and December 1985. The other visitor from Blackpool to Crich during this period was Balloon 710 and it was to stay longer; arriving in April 1984 and leaving a few days after 607 in December 1985. It would turn out to be the last Balloon Car to run at Crich for the best part of 30 years. As for the Standard car, it had arrived at Crich in 1962 and entered service two years later. In 1985 it was still operational although seven years later in 1992 it would be withdrawn from service and hasn’t run since.
The three trams are seen in front of the depots in August 1985.
Photograph by Keith Chadbourne, August 1985