A little while ago we featured a photo taken on the West Midlands Metro showing two trams coupled together as one was towed back to depot with a fault. At the time we mused that it didn’t happen that often that a faulty tram had to be towed back and then soon after a photo drops into our inbox showing another instance on a different tramway – and it adds itself into the longest tram in the UK category!
On this occasion it was the Blackpool Tramway which saw a tram develop a fault. It was Flexity2 013 which was declared a failure at Cleveleys and in order to further investigate the issue it was propelled back to the centre track at Bispham. After the problem wasn’t able to be rectified it was then towed all the way back to Fleetwood by sister tram 011.
With the two Flexity2s coupled together it makes for a very long consist – but it should be remembered this is just to get the tram back to depot and is not a plan to add capacity to the tramway!
011 gets ready to tow 013 back to Starr Gate, seen at Bispham. (Photograph by Michael Morton, 26th June 2024)