Anyone who has visited Blackpool this year won’t have failed to notice the increasing number of replica blinds being fitted to the heritage trams with Twin Car 675+685 and Open Top Balloon 706 the latest to become recipients of Peter Watts’ handiwork. Peter is now working on more replica blinds for fitting to more of the heritage fleet including a very special set of blinds of a style that hasn’t been seen for many years in Blackpool. To help him in his task of creating more blinds he is looking for anyone who has an original Blackpool tram blind in their collection to contact him.
He has developed a method which allows an electronic copy of the blind to be made in order that the various destinations can be reproduced at a later date and also has the added bonus of allowing the Blackpool Heritage Trust to be able to build a significant database on destination blinds to ensure this is not lost forever. If anyone has an original Blackpool destination blind in their private collection please contact us using the usual channels and we will put you in contact with Peter.
Hopefully able to build a definitive database in time. Am sure their friends at the National Tramway Museum will assist them in any way they can. 5, 59, 40 & a few others possibly good ones to make electronic copies of depending on condition. Likewise East Anglia 11 am sure they could be of help.
I’m sure Peter is already aware of this, but remember that for many years Blackpool blinds were all hand painted by a dedicated signwriter in the company workshops, working on linen. Because of this there was a lot of variation in designs and not all screens appeared on every blind. There were also quite a few one offs, with OMO5 having a good example for many years. I also seem to remember a preserved car (either standard 40, 49, 159 or pantigraph 167 I don’t remember which) having an original side blind which was interesting because it had some very ornate designs for inland routes which had been carefully painted over to form a black blank. They were still easy to spot from the back though.
I have a blind dating from 1960 which I believe was produced for one of the ,then, new twin cars. It is unusual in featuring yellow lettering rather than white, although some of the yellow paint is now peeling away. I understand from Paul Turner’s book “Progress Twin Car” that these were made specifically for a limited stop Starr Gate-Fleetwood service upon which these cars were first used. If Peter is interested in this blind I would be happy to discuss it with him.
Hello, Indeed this is of interest! Please could you send your details via email to the BTO contact address at the top of this page, and then I can make direct contact. Thank you in advance!
A big thank you to the people who have replied to this article via email; several very interesting blinds which contain valuable information have been identified and these will be copied electronically to ensure that the information is archived for future use.