With Blackpool Heritage Tram Tours currently looking at a phased reintroduction, with Illumination Tours due to start in October 2025 in time for Lightpool, a start has been made on the first part of the work needed. This has necessitated a move around of exhibits in the Exhibition part of Tramtown at Rigby Road Depot (the former Fitting Shop) which also doubles as the workshop.
The first phase of the phased reintroduction requires the trams planned to operate the tours from October (announced as being the Western Train, Frigate and a Balloon Car) to be assessed before they can then be moved to Starr Gate Depot. To aid this 22nd July 2025 saw a bit of a shunt with the Frigate HMS Blackpool and Balloon 717 moved from the main depot building (which remains out of bounds) into the workshop/Tramtown Exhibition.
By Saturday 16th August 2025 the two trams remained there and Bolton 66 was also present as we see in these photos below.
As part of the announcement made at the start of July 2025 it was confirmed that several steps would be needed before the heritage trams could return:
- An independent expert will assess the operational worthiness of the trams
- New speed restriction technology will be installed
- Intensive driver and conductor training
- The tracks outside Rigby Road Depot will be inspected and cleaned
- Trams to be used will then be moved to Starr Gate Depot where they will be housed and maintained
The move of the trams into the workshop marks the start of this process with the other stages to follow in the coming months, if all goes as its hoped it will.
Lightpool Festival gets underway from 15th October. It is planned that once a successful reintroduction of tours has been implemented, Tours of the Illuminations would then continue until the lights go out at the start of January 2026.
- The official Tramtown YouTube page has a video of the 22nd July shunt at https://youtu.be/OL_jVpeDz6Q?si=pP9lzsDQ1DfCKqF3
Balloon 717 seen within Tramtown exhibition, waiting for a chance to stretch its wheels once again.
The Frigate, HMS Blackpoool, F736, is also in Tramtown. This was the last tram to still be based at Starr Gate following the December 2024 suspension of all heritage tours.
And Bolton 66 is also present in the line at Tramtown. (All Photographs by Oliver Shenton, 16th August 2025)
With just 7 weeks to complete all the inspections, fitting and testing of the new speed restriction tech, and then refreshers for driving and conducting staff, I fear time may not be in the side of Blackpool Transport. Let’s hope some magic can be pulled out the bag and we start to see trams out testing and training in the next couple weeks.
BTS has started a campaign of Facebook posts proclaiming how busy they have been this year and what a wonderful service they have provided.
Just think how busy they would have been if they had provided boats, Alice and other suitable members of the heritage fleet and collected the revenue that has been foregone, for which an explanation should be given.
For the record I have booked flights and a hotel on Fishermans Wharf and will be riding the two boats that will be out in San Francisco over the MUNI vintage weekend.
I’m not sure which is worse – BTS operation or Donnyland!
Let us sincerely hope that, if heritage trams do see the light of day on the Promenade once more, they will have been cleaned up.
For the past few years, they have looked tired and filthy with no attention paid to paintwork and 717, in particular, has not been cleaned to the point that seeing out of upper deck windows has been worse that contravision and its interior has looked like the unloved state the balloons were in during the late 1960s and early 1970s when they were seasonal people movers. (Just looked at Oliver’s photographs of it!!)
Over the past few years, the heritage trams have seldom carried appreciable loads so the fact they have been missing has not been a great burden on Blackpool Transport’s finances but I do agree with Frank Gradwell that, especially as we have seen the warmest and sunniest season in recent years, the three boats should have been selected to work up and down the Promenade, possibly running a Heritage Express service non-stop from Tower & North Pier to Pleasure Beach. They would have been “rammed full” as they were in the 1990s. (You could put a boat on the stop at North Pier and people would board it just for the sake of riding on an open tram without worrying about its destination!).
Sadly the foresight to run these trams has been lacking and Heritage had lost its way. Hence the filthy unloved “always the same” trams on the Promenade that looked dirtier by the day to the point where they must have been an embarrassment to people actually working them.
There are a good number of heritage trams that could, and should, be brought back into the limelight and, with proactive management, could be sponsored by companies, as they were in 1985 for the centenary, and live to fight another day on Blackpool Promenade.
It needs careful planning and, dare I say it, a cull of the duplication of types so that the remaining heritage fleet is manageable, loved and cared for, and always turned out in pristine condition.
If you look at heritage tram operation in European cities and even at the National Tramway Museum and Beamish, they do not turn the trams out looking like they need a good bath – they are pristine every time they go out.
Much to do, I’m afraid, but it can be done with a Heritage Tramway Manager who cares and has a bit of forethought about commercial sponsorship. You would even find willing volunteers to fill this role too!
The dirty and sometimes bleached looking paintwork and windows on many heritage trams are no doubt caused by excessive storage under the leaky areas of Rigby Road depot which highlights very well why this building is not fit for regular tram operations at the moment. Unless some improvements are made soon to the roof, the problem of “dirty trams” is likely to continue for some time which we will all just have to put up with because as the saying goes “Any heritage trams out are better than none at all”.
I would certainly agree that some sort oif cull is essential to allow the Heritage fleet to remain manageable. I believe that one example of a Brush Car, Coronation, Centenary and English Electric Railcoach woiuld suffice plus maybe, courtesy of FTT a working OMO (as these saved the tramway during the 1970s). Only those trams that are top revenue earners should be duplicated. Therefore three Boats and as many Balloons as the Heritage operation dare run, plus one twin car would seem totally reasonable. Other than those, only the Illuminated trams plus pre-streamlined examples (such as 66) need be retained. Thus there woukd be a good working fleet, maximising passenger capacity per square foot of depot space and also sufficient examples on show in Tramtown to illustrate the history of the Tramway.
When will the Dreadnought be rebuilt – it would be spectacular on the seafront. Rescue it from its decay at Clay Cross!
What’s that got to do with this article? And considering we’re looking at hopefully, maybe having three operational trams on the prom this year, its not really the time to be having a discussion like this is it? The future of operational heritage trams in Blackpool would have to be secured before any such ambitious schemes could even be considered!
Were the Dreadnought not at Clay Cross it would not exist at all. The first step in any future existence for this iconic vehicle would be to move it to the new ‘Museum Store’ at Crich. But, first, that has yet to be built! There is a dedicated fund for the purpose and donations would, I am sure, be welcomed. Actions and, even more, finance are more effective than empty slogans.
I believe that the Dreadnought belongs to the TMS.
It won’t and shouldn’t ever operate on the promenade, not with today’s attitudes and behaviours.
Same for a toastrack.