Fleetwood Tram Sunday 2023 has been cancelled because of the poor weather forecast for Sunday 16th July. Following the cancellation of the event Blackpool Heritage Tram Tours have confirmed that they will run a revised hop-on, hop-off timetable on the day, which will now operate to the usual timings (the same as Saturday 15th) with five tram scheduled to be in use both days.
In a statement released on the afternoon of Friday 14th July the organisers if Fleetwood Tram Sunday said: “It’s with deep sadness that after consultation with key stakeholders, including our insurers and their legal department, we’ve had to take the decision to cancel Fleetwood Festival of Transport and the SpareParts Festival for 2023. We’ve been monitoring the weather hourly but unfortunately as at 14:00 today 14th July the MET Office weather forecast for Sunday 16th July is westerly winds of up to 35mph. To safely continue with the festival in these conditions is unfeasible for many reasons, particularly because of the number of gazebos and temporary structures on site. We always have and always will put visitor and participant safety first. It’s of the upmost importance and the reason why we have taken the decision to cancel the festival.”
The statement continues: “To say we are disappointed is an understatement. Our volunteers have worked for months planning this event. They are passionate about our community and the festival and bringing people to Fleetwood to experience our lovely town and boost the local economy. We’d like to say a big thank you to all the performers, vendors and community groups who were due to take part in the parade and the festival. We know how hard you’ve worked on planning for this weekend too. We appreciate your understanding and hope you’ll join us next year. We’ll contact you as soon as possible to explain what will happen with your bookings. Unfortunately due to the logistics of road closure planning and participants having bookings throughout the rest of the year, we are unable to postpone the festival to a later date in 2023. We hope you understand and support our decision and will return to the festival with us in 2024.”
Blackpool Heritage Tram Tours had been due to support the event by sending Balloon 723 and the Western Train as static exhibits whilst also running heritage tours to Fisherman’s Walk, including special mini-tours between Fisherman’s Walk and Thornton Gate. But now with the event cancelled the plans have changed.
The previously announced hop-on, hop-off timetable due to run on Saturday 15th July will now also run on Sunday 16th July providing various trips between Pleasure Beach and Fleetwood and many points in between!
Tram allocations have now also been confirmed (and the trams chosen probably gives more of a clue of the weather forecast – which is very un-July like and probably the only Boat you may see is one with oars rowing down the Prom!)
Saturday 15th July
A – Brush 631
B – Balloon 700
C – Railcoach 680
D – Balloon 717
E – Balloon 723
Sunday 16th July
A – Balloon 700
B – Balloon 723
C – Brush 631
D – Brush 621
E – Centenary 648
The previously announced plans for Saturday 15th July including the Full System Tour will continue as planned.
Away from the heritage service and Blackpool Transport will continue to run a revised service on the core tramway service owing to policies in place regarding tram driver duties. This means all trams from Starr Gate will continue to terminate at Fisherman’s Walk from the start of service until 1730.
- Full details of the timetable can be found at https://blackpoolheritage.com/tram-sunday-2023/
Very wise decision – the weather was wild until early afternoon. I think anyone who was brave enough to venture out would not have enjoyed any outdoor event in any way at all. It’s unfortunate that Blackpool Transport had no contingency plans in place in case of cancellation – maybe a case of better not to assume things would necessarily go as planned. Maybe a salutory lesson for the management team and although the opportunity to plan proactively has been missed, at least they will be able to plan more effectively in future based upon this experience.
Of course interchange at Fishermans Walk with the No. 14 service is reasonably straightforward and no doubt most passengers would have a valid pass of some sort, whether a day ticket, longer period ticket or locals with valid ENCTS passes. Let us hope that the Heritage Tram crews weren’t tempted to allow passengers a lift to Fishermans Walk from the Ferry as this, if it became widely known, would raise some very awkward questions about the Heritage operation. Of course it may have been that a few more paying passengers were gained as a result of the unsatisfactory arrangement with the Flexities. More likely, most prospective Heritage passengers stayed safely at home, but a worthy effort all the same on the part of Heritage Tours to keep the show on the rails.
Surely this is another nail in the coffin for the Blackpool tramway’s reputation as a serious public transport system? Whilst accepting the reason given for trams terminating at Fisherman’s Walk – surely some alternative plan could have been put in place? Maybe an ’emergency timetable’ with a slightly less frequent service so as to ensure that Fleetwood Ferry would still be served? That said, if not enough crews were available to run a full service I would have to question why – as Tram Sunday is a busy event would it not have been wise to have had a few specials out, in which case the crews that would have operated the extra trams to cope with the anticipated crowds, could have been used to reinstate the normal timetable.
I do not envy the BTS staff who found themselves having to explain to passengers that the trams were terminating at Fisherman’s Walk whilst the heritage cars continued to the Ferry… and before anyone points it out, I am aware that this happened at Tram Sunday between 1985 and 1999, but that was a very different situation as the event was in full swing, whereas yesterday there was nothing happening at all!
The timetable couldn’t revert to normal because, the union policy is that crews must be given 48 hours notice to change duties. The cancellation was notified around 38 hours before Sundays first duties were due to sign on…
It has also happened elsewhere when partial closures for events and/or maintenance have been cancelled at the last minute but the planned temporary arrangements remained in place.
Blackpool Transport did provide a bus replacement service between Fishersmans Walk
and the ferry. Evidently the Flexitys were not insured to provide a service to the ferry until 6.30p. m.
A furthlunchtime.er problem on the the day was that there was no power for the tramway for about an hour around lunchtime. the heritage tram service did operate with
the 5 trams and 707 as the shop at north pier,