Anyone heading down to Tramtown in Blackpool (Rigby Road Depot) over the past few days will probably have been concerned by the sight of notices preventing access to the workshops and main tram shed and fencing across the front of the depot. In what seemed to be a sudden change of fortunes (Tramtown tours were still available for booking last week) it set the rumours off of what was going on but things have now been clarified after the release of a statement from Blackpool Transport Managing Director Jane Cole.
As has been known for some time Rigby Road Depot – which as well as housing the historic Tramtown visitor attraction is also home to Blackpool Transport’s fleet of buses – is currently undergoing a major redevelopment. For the buses this will allow a brand new fleet of electric buses to be introduced and will see the historic workshops used by the trams (Paint Shop, Body Shop, Fitting Shop) demolished with the workshop equipment moved over to the tram shed and incorporated into Tramtown.
Work on the redevelopment has now started and part of this will require a full structural survey to be undertaken of all buildings on site. Whilst this takes place access has been restricted and all Tramtown tours cancelled until 2024 whilst a number of heritage trams have been transferred to Starr Gate Depot to allow them to continue operating tours on the tramway – this has included both the Western Train and HMS Blackpool which now run from Starr Gate to Foxhall and then reverse to Pleasure Beach to start Illumination Tours each evening (when booked to do so).
In the statement Jane Cole says: “Here at Blackpool Transport we are committed to ensuring the health, safety and wellbeing of all our staff, volunteers and contractors on site at Rigby Road. Rigby Road is currently being redeveloped to create a new bus engineering facility for our team and there is also a proposal to create an all-electric bus fleet.
“Every building on the site is having a structural survey at the moment to ascertain what needs to be done to either retain or demolish them. We have contractors on site and the use of drones in operation.
“Tramtown will not open to customer tours until 2024 but the volunteers have been accommodated in Rigby Road where they meet on a regular basis to continue their excellent work. A limited Heritage tram operation will continue throughout the illuminations until the 31st December, with trams housed at Starr Gate.”
It is also confirmed that the Heritage Tram Tours will take a break in January to allow some intense maintenance and repair work to take place on some of the trams ahead of the start of another season of operation later in 2024.
Jane Cole concludes the statement: “The tram operation will close in January 2024 for a short period of time to enable some intense maintenance and repair work on some of the trams to be ready for the 2024 season.
“Blackpool Transport and Blackpool Council continue to fully support Tramtown and the tramway operation.
“More information will be given at regular intervals and once the structural surveys and any repair works have been completed.”
Although it will now not be possible to see behind the scenes at Tramtown, Illumination Tours are still available for booking along with some of the themed tours such as Fish & Chip Trams, Ghost Tram and the Real Ale Tour. More details at https://blackpoolheritage.com/
What an absolute disgrace demolishing the oldest surviving part of Rigby Road Depot the engineering shops paint shop and leaving the iconic historic heritage trams with extremely limited space to carry out maintenence restoration works ensuring the fate future survival of these World Heritage Engineering Marvels Unique and most important in the world trams .whilst I fully appreciate progress in this modern world and the need for eco friendly transport ie electric buses. Surely the buildings that are of the greatest importance at Rigby Road including the engineering workshops paint shop 1930,s Tramshed should have preservation orders on and be restored repaired as part of our Heritage as they are not remodelled into a toy town museum oops so sorry tramtown museum with very limited space to accommodate the whole existing fleet of historic trams .it is a total travesty to the Blackpool area the people of the world who visit that the tramtown project museum will not have enough space to accommodate shoehorn in all the necessary tools equipment forge exhibits all in the tram shed .the tram sheds should stay as it is but repaired as the only original purpose built and used surviving working tramshed .why can’t the engineering shops paint shop historically extremely significant buildings be repaired repurposed to include the museum visitor attraction leave the tramsheds as a safe storage area working restoration space just for the trams .we are losing too many historical buildings replaced by modern boxes that take less maintenence but have absolutely no link to our past please consider future generations who will not want to see only pictures of our past historical and most important buildings that had a purpose most important to serving the public but instead be able to visit admire the survival in the area of this remarkable space a true surviving working Heritage tramway the oldest tramway in Great Britain still making use as intended use of the tramsheds and surrounding areas for all to continue to enjoy.i knows this will not happen as alas the Blackpool powers that be want the electric buses and won’t move them all to somewhere else or split the fleet up instead they expect want the public to accept a token site with a museum and a few trams even organ music played to please the public with a nice cafe raised decking viewing platform etc.not a working fully tram shed as originally purposed to keep the World Heritage historic trams safe as a unique wonderful large collection a real educational and outstanding feature of Blackpool as iconic important as Blackpool Tower the three mighty piers and the beautiful coastline,I wish we the public could with potential people power get this demolishing stopped and tramshed tramtown project rejigged put to use all the historic buildings on site surviving now pre demolishing .Time is short the time to tell the powers that are Blackpool Council and Blackpool Transport this situation needs to be changed is now please help if youu agree to this suggestion to protect ensure our future generations applaud our actions now..thankyou for taking the time to read this.
I really don’t understand why some people would like to preserve so many artefacts with little historic relevance. The Rigby Road site in Blackpool has undergone many reconfigurations over the years and the only really historically significant building was demolished years ago when Blundell Street depot went. If the heritage fleet is to survive it needs modern maintenance facilities with decent and safe working conditions for both paid and volunteer staff. Arguably the fleet also needs thinning out. The site also needs to provide facilities for stabling and maintenance of a fleet of modern buses. In its present format it cannot support all these requirements.
I coundn’t disagree with you more Steve! The historic sognificance of Rigby Road depot, it’s associated workshops and the historic tram fleet is largely due to it being a working example of a traditional tramway, not some highly polished cardboard museum with a few token trams and other artefacts. There are plennty of museums out there, of variable quality. We really don’t need another in the same style. I’ve said on here before that the important part of the Blackpool operation is / was the experience. Those late October nights with rain lashing at the windows of a balloon running to Fleetwood, it’s passengers enjoying the warm cozy glow of the flickering tungsten saloon lights and the two conductors with their TIM machines, chating away on the platform. All of that atmosphere has already been lost with the extremely limited daytimne operation of the heritage fleet and the same half dozen cars available for service day in and day out.
Blackpool doesn’t need state of the art maintenance facilities. The ones they have (or had) were more than adequate for well over 100 years. They were populated by skilled craftsmen who could create pretty much anything in house and did this on a daily basis. A complete rebuild of a tram took months, not years and the entire fleet was kept alive and avaialble for service.
Now what is there? Who now can make a pantograph or hand paint a destination blind? Who can fit a tyre? Who can build a teak frame or bend a piece of ash? BT and Toytown’s idea of restoration seems to be to paint something and that’s about it. That’s why we don’t have any ‘restored’ twin cars in service, because nobody thought (or was able?) to replace worn out wiring.
The whole toytown idea should be knocked on the head, more heritage cars put into service on a daily basis and the money raised through fares used to repair and restore all aspects of the infrastructure. The ‘museum’ should be out there, running up and down the prom, not tucked away down some back street where few except the hardened enthusiast ever venture.
Send the buses to some industrial estate on the edge of town somewhere, where they have the space and scope to be modern venture they want to be.
But most importantly split the business into three… Heritage trams, LRVs and buses. Have accounts for all three and let them compete on a fair playing field. And before anyone mentions accessibility to public transport, I would remind you thet we are NOT in europe any more and NOT bound by their crazy rules.
Finally, if you reallyw ant an exhibition space at Rigby Road, may I remind everyone that the current Rigby Road depot was originally built as a dual purpose depot & exhibition centre. That’s why the original inspection pits only extend half the length of the building. So there’s no need to mess with anything. Just dig out the original plans and put it back the way it was.
The ‘state of the art’ tramway is why this once frequent visitor to Blackpool hasn’t been back for almost 10 years now. The reason I went has been destroyed.
“this once frequent visitor to Blackpool hasn’t been back for almost 10 years now”
So they could knock it all down and build a car park and it wouldn’t effect you the slightest because you haven’t been for nearly a decade. You just want things to stay the same. That’s the thinking which has put Crich in trouble
You really don’t understand present day circumstances do you. The heritage operation does need modern safe and efficient facilities where the skilled technicians can carry out their work in warm, well lit and well equipped surroundings. They can’t be expected to carry on in outdated buildings just because a few enthusiasts think that’s how it should be. As lazzer says in his reply the Health and Safety Executive would have something to say about retaining such outdated working conditions. The accessibility regulations are actually enshrined in UK law and aren’t anything to do with being in the EU. I actually think your comments about the skills of the team maintaining the heritage fleet are rather insulting, they carry out extremely good work and do possess the skills you seem to think have been lost. The market for the heritage operation is very limited and is nowhere near as large as some enthusiast seem to believe.
Just to correct one small point, Blackpool Transport only ever painted a couple of inserts for their destination blinds, and this was the subject of the “famous” photo in a publication which led to this urban myth all Blackpool’s tram blinds were hand painted. Far from it, all Blackpool’s tram blinds from the Standards onwards were manufactured and printed using screen printing technology from the main blind manufacturers of the period. Proof of this is in our archive collection of historical blinds including Blackpool bus and tram blinds, plus the various drawings from Blackpool Transport to the blind manufacturers
But to answer the question, yes there are several people still capable of replicating destination blinds by the traditional screen printing method, as can be seen by the fact that the vast majority of the Heritage fleet are fitted with blinds printed from 2016 onwards.
And for the other points, please remember that many of the trams in Rigby Road belong to the Fylde Transport Trust and therefore come under the responsibility of the FTT for restoration, not BTS.
I suppose Health and Safety regulations will have a big say in what is retained or demolished. Hopefully there is the cash available to replace what is knocked down. If they start ripping up the track with no plans to replace it …well chaps that will be it….
Plans for redevolpment at Rigby Rd depot passed by Blackpool Town planners. Report on this decision published in Blackpool Evening Gazette on 27/10/2023.