“Meet the Trams” returns to the National Tramway Museum to catch-up on another tram which has now carried passengers in 2026. That tram is, of course, the latest release from the Workshops which was launched on 12th September 2026: Blackpool 645.
Blackpool Centenary Car 645 is a tram which a few years many would have been surprised to hear had been returned to operational use. It was sold by Blackpool Transport after the end of traditional tram operation in 2011 and initially found its to Windy Harbour Caravan Park (as one of the last trams to find a new home). It remained there for five years and the chance of it running again then were probably quite a long way from everyone’s minds!
645 was one of the eight Centenary Cars built for Blackpool with it entering service in 1987. It would undergo a midlife overhaul and would remain in service until 2011 with it running on the last day of 6th November 2011 (albeit one which saw it towed back to depot having broken down!). After its 2012-2017 period at the Caravan Park it would return to Rigby Road for another six years before moving to Crich in 2023.
Its move to Crich was for a very specific purpose as it was to be converted to become a new Access tram, complete with the fitting of a wheelchair lift. A lot of care and attention to the tram enabled this to work to be completed on schedule and the tram – in a new coat of green and cream livery – entered service on 12th September 2026.
It became the 16th passenger tram to run at Crich in 2026.
645 is seen on launch day here as it heads up the line passing the Bandstand/Entrance stop. (Photograph by Gareth Prior, 12th September 2026)
It’s interesting to note that Crich could have received their own Centenary Car many years earlier… 651 was the second Centenary to enter service in Blackpool, but was non-standard in that it had experimental bogies with AC motors rather than the usual DC. It was all part of an engineering test and when the test was over BT refitted 651 with the standard Blackpool-built Centenary bogies and renumbered it 648. A prominent member of the TMS at the time offered to have a slightly shorter Centenary type body specially constructed by Easter Coach Works, which would have received the experimental bogies and (somewhat ironically) made Crich the owner of Britain’s very last traditional tram from new!!! Unfortunately Crich politics got in the way and a certain long standing board member (now deceased) made sure the board vetoed the plan. I believe the bogies (which from memory were modified Coronation bogies) are now abandoned in the TMS store at Clay Cross.
They could have had 648 in 2011 and turned it down. that’s why it kept its more traditional front on overhaul as it was destined for them.