2024 ended with a tram scrapping as Blackpool Brush Railcoach 622 was cut-up on site at Anchorsholme Academy. The tram – which carried a version of its former Tigerrific Blackpool Zoo advertising livery – had been at the school for just over 10 years but costs involved in refurbishing it have meant it was deemed surplus to requirements by the school.
In a statement in a recent school newsletter they said: “We had hoped to refurbish the tram on our playground however the costs were far too high and we were unable to afford them. We then found a new home for the tram and it was due to be refurbished as a glamping pod. Sadly health and safety stated it was unsafe and therefore will be removed from site over the Christmas holidays. Our pupils have shared they are looking forward to having more space to play outside.”
622 was built in 1937 as no. 285, the second of the 20 strong class of streamlined trams – the only class of the 1930s Blackpool trams to come out of the Loughborough facility. Renumbered as 622 is 1968, the tram’s biggest claim to fame probably came in 1975 when it received the first single deck all over advert for Blackpool Zoo. The iconic Tigerrific livery was carried until late 1980 and after that the tram settled into being just another member of the single deck fleet in Blackpool. It was originally listed for withdrawal in the great mothballing of 2004 but its then advert for Glyngarry Windows gave it a stay of execution. It even survived to receive a new advert in 2006 for Pontins before it was finally withdrawn from the last time in 2009.
Into preservation and after a few moves across the Blackpool area it was earmarked for a special project at what was then Anchorsholme Primary School and is now Anchorsholme Academy. This would see the tram receive its 1975 Tigerrific Blackpool Zoo advert and be used as a classroom at the school.
622 left Rigby Road Depot in April 2014 – at that time it was just painted in the base coat for the advert – and was placed in the school playground. It subsequently had its advert completed and the remained in place for over 10 years until December 2024 when the decision was taken to break the tram up on site during the school holidays.
Two images taken from outside the school showing the breaking up of 622. (Both Photographs by Gary Mitchell)
I hope the school has offered bits to any interested parties for spare parts.
It always felt inevitable and if anything it lasted far longer than most people predicted. Whether a tram should ever have been located in close proximity to a hard standing playground debatable. Hopefully the children enjoyed it. Scrapping it during the holidays seems sensible to avoid any disruption to learning or indeed upset. I was in the minority who would have been quite happy to see it scrapped ten years ago.I questioned the logic of using the then elected councillors using ward budget on it and a school using its own limited resources as well.
Let’s just hope that this year hasn’t begun as it means to go on. Anchorsholme Academy today – Rigby Road Depot tomorrow? News seems generally to be all bad at the moment – major retrenchment at Birkenhead, mystery suspension of Blackpool Hertiage Trams, etc.
Controversially I’d suggest that a good clearout of some of the junk might be just what the tram preservation movement needs! So much money has been squandered trying to rescue dozens of Blackpool trams, some of which have already been broken up and more will almost certainly follow… its frightening to think of how much was spent on purchasing and transporting them all over the past decade and a bit. How many trams could have been restored to service with that money? Or alternatively, could a new depot have been built at one of the museums to house the surviving cars in? As nice as it would be to save everything, trams are just too niche to support that level of required funding sadly. It doesn’t help when everyone starts doing their own thing and trying to start their own projects instead of getting behind those who have some knowledge and a track record of delivering the goods. Unless you have a lot of money and a good plan, saving a tram is not something that most of us can realistically achieve alone.
Regarding the Brush cars, I think that once 298’s restoration is completed, it should really be viewed as THE representation of the class in preservation. Ideally some others should also be kept – in my opinion, 621, 623, 630 and 634 would be a good selection, enabling different eras and liveries to be portrayed in a number of locations. I’d not be too sad if the rest were scrapped, but I accept that others wouldn’t agree.
622 had an interesting history but even before it was withdrawn it was in a poor condition and I can’t be too sad about its demise even though I have some fond memories of it. I’m more sad that taxpayers money was used to extend its life by a decade!
Not controversial; just common sense. As is the rest of your comment. it is a pity that there were not more people, 10 – 15 years ago, who thought the same and were not afraid to say it. Let’s hope that the wake-up call that the tram preservation movement is currently receiving leads to a more rational, movement-wide approach!
Its only just occured to me as well that the four ‘other’ Brush cars I suggested to keep as preserved examples have all been supported by an individual enthusiast who at some point either spent the money on his chosen tram, or donated it to a society to ensure its preservation and/or pay for work to be done. In all cases, we all benefitted. That probably says a lot about how preservation can, and should, ideally work!
It’s not a mystery suspension, BTS decided they wanted to follow ORR advice for the Flexities and apply to the Heritage. Sensible in this litigation led world.
ORR have confirmed they were not involved and that collision detection equipment is not required on heritage vehicles.
BTS have been conspicuously evasive about the true reason for the suspension and all the language used in press releases so far has been non-specific. I think everyone would be a lot happier if they just came clean about the true reason for the suspension – whatever that may be.
They haven’t been that evasive, they issued a statement saying they wanted to pursue fitting some form of equipment.
To be prefectly honest, there were and still are many trams at Rigby Road that will never be restored – there simply isn’t the money nor the resources to keep and restore them all. For me one of the earliest mistakes made was the lack of a long term (and viable) coherent policy as to what should be retained (servicable), retained (suitable for restoration) and (yes, unfortunately) stripped for spares and scrapped.
Fully expecting to be castigated for suggesting this, but I love the old trams, riding on them and photographing them but, for example, should Balloon 704, currently just a body frame be totally rebuilt and put back into traffic or perhaps left as as it is as a “Tramtown exhibit” (assuming Tramtown survives) and the money spent on bring Standards 143 or 147 back into traffic? At the end of the day, it is all going to come back to available financing.
I agree to an extent, but a “clear-out” isn’t that simple. Many of the trams in Rigby Road are privately owned by groups or individuals who understandably don’t wish to see their historic trams destroyed. It’s a tough one as I agree there are far too many duplicates and trams with no hope of restoration in the near future.
As for 704 I understand that it is owned by an individual who is fully funding the restoration. I suspect progress is being held back because access to Rigby Road depot is currently prohibited, rather than for financial reasons. It has a new underframe ready to go, as does 706.
I’m pretty sure that work on 704 had ground to a halt before the restricted access to Rigby Road started. I’d love to see it finished but I doubt it’ll ever happen – at least not at Blackpool.
You mentioned trams that are at Rigby Road, but are owned by different people. 704 is privately owned and the funds for this restoration are from the owner. Nothing funds being diverted from elsewhere for this. Standard 143 belongs to the Fylde Transport Trust whereas 147 is owned by Blackpool Transport (and therefore ultimately a Blackpool Council asset). Different ownership means different resources for funding restorations.
The issue there is that 704 is privately owned, and financed, so you can’t just transfer funds allocated to restoring it, to other trams. Although on recent form, the money set aside for it is probably more likely to just go unspent sadly!
I agree with everything else you say, though. Some sort of basic collection plan setting out which trams are needed to tell the story of the Blackpool tramway and provide an interesting and financially viable operating fleet really ought to have been one of the first things to be thought about – too many trams are at Rigby Road simply because nobody bought them at the time of the upgrade, or because someone thought one more wouldn’t hurt. I’ve often wondered what they’d do with them all if they did actually get the money to do up the old depot, while the work was in progress!
There could be plenty of money to restore and operate EVERY tram that BT had in their fleet prior to the “upgrade”. All the heritage vehicles should have been kept and operated on a daily basis, with LRT’s only running a very basic hourly Fleetwood -Starr Gate service. Everything else should have been traditional trams, generating revenue as a tourists attraction and earning their keep. When these historic vehicles are gone there will be no way of bringing them back. Anyone who endorses their destruction has no place in either the preservation movement or Blackpool’s tourism industry. It’s just short-sighted moronic stupidity on the part of those who simply can’t be bothered!
You seem to be ignoring the fact that a lot of the remaining traditional trams in Blackpool by 2011 were pretty much worn out. Excluding the illuminated feature cars, refurbished Balloons and Centenary cars, nearly everything was close to the point of needing major works attention to keep running – not exactly a solid foundation of a heritage fleet!
I also think the idea that the many people who struggle with high steps should have to wait a whole hour for a tram on what is supposed to be a public transport system very offensive. Its 2025, not 1935!
Sorry, Andy, but Tramcar preservation is a niche market and therefore doesn’t attract the same attention, or funding as, for example, railway preservation, be it steam, diesel, hydraulic etc. Your argument would, if applied to railway preservation, mean preserving and restoring every locomotive sitting in Dai Woodhams scrapyard in Barry in the late 60’s, early 70’s. It is totally unrealistic and nigh on impossible. It would appear that you would want to preserve, and restore, every heritage tramcar upon the implementation of the upgrade. Why? It would have been far better to select the best of the fleet that represented the development of the tramway as it stood in 2012, and maximise their potential as a tourism attraction (thinking a pair of Balloons, the odd railcoach, Twins, Alice, Boats, 66/143, etc) even recreating originals like another open top Balloon. But to hold on to practically the whole fleet, and therefore filling Rigby Road up with every available relic of the system, is totally unrealistic. The sheer cost in money and manpower would write the whole project off immediately. Rationalisation is the key. Decide what is salvageable and scrap the rest for parts to keep the remainder of the fleet running. Hard decisions, but it needs to be done.
Where do you seriously think the millions would have come from? On average a full restoration is £100k – 400k and most would have needed a lot of work. 70 Trams? I don’t think so.
You couldn’t run an hourly core service and anything other than low floor is now illegal for core service.
So nice idea but pure fantasy. Of the millions who travel few care what they travel on and locals certainly prefer the Flexities as does anyone with shopping or mobility impairment etc etc.
You simply cannot rescue/keep/restore everything. FACT.
Unfortunate, but not a huge loss to tramway preservation as the Brush single-deckers have done remarkably well in retirement. Five operational examples, one undergoing a heavy overhaul and plenty more safe undercover.
A list of the remaining Brush Cars in jeopardy:
624 (287/259) – little more than a shell and in poor condition – hopefully the FTT will continue to have this car stored somewhere, but it requires a great deal of work.
626 – Acquired by Peel Holdings for a project which didn’t materialise, it now stands falling to bits on Birkenhead Docks.
636 – Was looking for a new owner. Not sure of current status.
Additionally, the future of 625 and 630 is not altogether clear.
By my reckoning, that leaves just 7 Brush Cars which for now are relatively safe, all other things being equal – 8 if the Trawler 737 is included. I suppose that a 40% survival rate isn’t too bad, but nothing like the Balloons of which only three have been lost. If parts of 622 have been made available, then this could assist with the retention of the 8 surviving cars, otherwise it’s important to ensure that parts are salvaged from any other examples that have to be scrapped. In that way any unnecessary losses, due merely to lack of fittings of any sort, can be avoided .
Just to clarify that 624 is not “in jeopardy”. It is a long term restoration, for which the base plan is already in place.
Many thanks for the clarification. In these days of great uncertainty it’s very reassuring. I expect it will be highly praised when complete, given the excellent work on 143 and the advanced progress on 279.
Given the present situation at Blackpool, what on earth is the point of attempting to restore 8 Brush cars? Some comments are unbelievable in their total lack of realism.
Absolutely spot on. I think 634, 298 (operational) & 630 (static) is quite a reasonably forseeable emerging picture. With something like 623 withdrawn and replaced with something like 680 (which they currently own but is on long term to BTS) or indeed FTTs 279 once restored.
Here’s hoping 680 doesn’t go back to Manchester. Whilst it is an operational tram it looked too modern and I believe wasn’t popular with drivers.
You need to remember that the surviving Brush cars are owned by currently 5 different organisations; Blackpool Transport (and therefore Blackpool Council assets), Fylde Transport Trust, Crich, Heaton Park & East Anglia. It is normal that each organisation wishes to restore its own trams, and therefore yes there will be several Brush cars restored.