“Picture in Time” is back in Blackpool with another photo taken during 1977.
Summer days of the past in Blackpool with sunshine, crowds of people and traditional trams in action on the Promenade. This photo is taken from the old Tower bridge again and looks across the tram tracks with three trams in view – one now scrapped, one with a very uncertain future and one which now resides in the United States of America. It’s a corporate look for the trams too with all three in the traditional green and cream fleet livery.
The trams we can see are Balloon 716 (which went to Scotland and ended up being scrapped) which is waiting just short of the stop at Tower as Brush 637 is just ahead heading north. 637 is a tram which currently has a very uncertain future with it being one of the last two trams at Wyre Dock awaiting removal with the disbanding of the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust. The centre track is then home to Boat Car 606 – a tram which went over to the US in part exchange for Standard 147.
Illumination interest is provided by Locomotion and Rocket which were part of the Rail 150 display designed by Alan Cockcroft and originally conceived in 1975 for the 150th anniversary of the Stockton and Darlington Railway.
Photograph by Donald Brooks, August 1977
Looking at the picture it seems more likely to be from 1976 given the excellent weather and the roof windows still present in 716. I recall riding on this tram in the Summer of 1977 and by then it had received a plain green roof with Darvic ceiling. At the time, I recall noticing the increased number of Balloons treated this way, most likely having undergone the transformation during the preceding winter. These also included 718 and 719.
I felt it was a shame that 716 came to be scrapped by default rather than in a planned manner, thereby enabling the recovery of useful parts such as motors and controllers. It is a great pity such useful parts were lost as they are notoriously expensive to recreate and the Heritage Trams in Blackpool would appear to be on a tight budget where every spare part is priceless.
Motors and controllers were removed long before it left Blackpool. A least that’s what I was told.
When I was discussing with the then owner about a possible purchase several years ago, he had claimed to have had the tram on blocks and powered up the motors directly. So this would suggest that the motors stayed on the tram although he had confirmed that at least one controller was missing. But bear in mind, this was all done via email with no photos / videos so no definitive proof.