“Picture in Time” changes locations again and this time we are off to the Heaton Park Tramway for a few weeks – the year being 1980.
The Heaton Park Tramway had only opened to the public on 28th March 1980 (official opening conducted by the Lord Mayor of Manchester) and so the photos we’ll be looking at over the next few weeks come just over four months later with it still establishing itself in the tram preservation world. At this time they only had one operational tram, and that tram is the poster tram of the tramway still to this day – Manchester 765.
We see 765 here at the Middleton Road Gates ready to makes its way further into the park. The 260m double track heritage line originally had three tracks and was a spur off the route on Middleton Road. This spur had opened on 21st April 1905 and was used to bring visitors into the Park (the largest municipally owned park in the UK) and to provide stabling for the trams.
Photograph by Donald Brooks, 3rd August 1980