New tickets introduced on Edinburgh Trams

Posted on Monday 7 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Two new mobile tickets are to be introduced on Edinburgh Trams – cutting the cost of travel for families to the Airport whilst also seeing a three, four or five day unlimited ticket across the network. These new tickets will be available exclusively online with passengers just needing to show their ticket on their mobile device.

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In Pictures: Sunderland 16 in action at Beamish

Posted on Monday 7 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Now we are firmly in the autumn season it is a bit of the calm before the storm for many heritage tramways with schools firmly back and before the busy October Half Term period and then Christmas – a period when places such as Beamish really come alive once more. With the quieter period at Beamish the number of trams in service during the week is lower with normally just a two tram service sufficing, one such day was Thursday 3rd October when Sunderland 16 (clockwise) and Blackpool 31 (anti clockwise) were operating as seen in the below photo from Trevor Hall.

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Around the World in Trams: Grenoble 2023

Posted on Sunday 6 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

This week our trip overseas lands in the south eastern French city of Grenoble for a view of one of their trams.

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Supertram fare increases on the way

Posted on Sunday 6 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

There will be increases to some fares on Stagecoach Supertram from Sunday 13th October – only affecting single and return tickets with dayriders remaining unchanged. Stacgecoach have said they have made the changes as a result of a review of fares.

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In Pictures: Metrolink 3061 receives Babyliss advert

Posted on Sunday 6 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

The uninspiring advert designs on Manchester Metrolink continue – 3061 has received an ad for Babyliss with a grey/white base colour, not too dissimilar to the standard Metrolink colours! The advert was first noted in service in late September and features full contravision on most windows along with the slogan “A new era in hairstyling” (pity that doesn’t extend to an inspiring all over advert!) and some models looking very pleased with their hair no doubt helped by those Babyliss hair care products! An added issue with the advert is that standard white fleet numbers feature on the side of the tram meaning the “61” gets rather lost within the advert.

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This week on British Trams Online

Posted on Sunday 6 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

After a slightly longer than planned hiatus we are back with another Photo Gallery this week:

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Posted in National Tramway Museum, Picture in Time | 2 Comments

In Pictures: Heaton Park Tramway Overhead Line Damage

Posted on Saturday 5 October 2019 by admin

As was reported in the news pages on 24th September and 1st October the Heaton Park Tramway suffered what could have been a devastating blow when a section of overhead wire was stolen overnight on 23rd/24th September. However in a fantastic show of community spirit once the news of the theft of a length of contact wire and damage to the tramway on 23rd/24th September became known at TfGM it started a process which culminated in TfGM, Keolis Amey Metrolink and Pod-Trak a specialist transport engineering company with a base in Eccles coming together to assemble the resources and material to repair the damage as quickly as possible. What follows is a report from the scene from Steve Hyde showing the commendable efforts which has allowed the wire to be put back up in double quick time.

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Posted in Heaton Park Tramway | 2 Comments

Picture in Time: Docklands Light Railway 40+97

Posted on Saturday 5 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Back to the DLR for this edition of Picture in Time and we are heading back 14 years to 2005.

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Half price travel for locals on Great Orme Tramway

Posted on Saturday 5 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

For the first time, the Great Orme Tramway will be a holding a community weekend during October which will give local residents the chance to enjoy travel up the Great Orme for half price. Taking place on Saturday 19th and Sunday 20th October all residents of Conwy county will be able to travel for £4.05 (adults) and £2.80 for children (3-15) with proof of residency required such as a driving licence or utility bill. This is a rare opportunity for locals to get cut price return travel on the line, so if you fall into the area why not go along to head up the Great Orme?

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In Pictures: FTS Triple Tram Illumination Tour

Posted on Friday 4 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

It was a tour which should have provided the first chance to ride on Standard 143 but turned out to be a tour which utilised three different trams (sort of) as the evening took many different twists and turns! Returning after a number of years the Fylde Tramway Society’s Illumination Tour was due to set off from North Pier/Tower at 1800 for a trip to Fleetwood, back to Pleasure Beach and then to Fisherman’s Walk and back through the illuminations to North Pier/Tower but in the event it ended up being very different to that!

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway, Fylde Tramway Society | 1 Comment

Nottingham Express Transit stars on CBeebies

Posted on Friday 4 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

It is often that you see trams playing a starring role on television but a recent episode of CBeebies’ popular show Maddie Do You Know featured a brief segment on Nottingham Express Transit. It would appear that the whole premise of the show is to explain to children how things work and this episode included not only how trams work but also all about maps.

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A soggy September Spectacular in Blackpool

Posted on Thursday 3 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

What’s that saying about the best laid plans? Well, that is exactly how the organisers of the September Spectacular must have felt with very heavy rain at times and of the three trams due to return to service over the weekend, none managed it thanks to various technical issues. But despite these issues there were 16 different heritage trams which ran over the weekend which included the rare use of all three illuminated feature cars during the day with two of them heading to Fleetwood.

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway, Event Reviews | 10 Comments

In Pictures: Magenta clinging on in the West Midlands

Posted on Thursday 3 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Just when you thought you had seen the last magenta tram actually running on the West Midlands Metro then 37 comes along with a replacement front wing – still in the old fleet livery! It is likely that 37 has bene one of a number of trams to be involved in RTCs recently which caused damage to its front wing which necessitated its replacement. As with all modern trams the construction of the panelling is such that when it does receive damage it can be just taken out and replaced with a spare and that is exactly what has happened in this case; although it would seem that as yet the re-vinyling hasn’t extended to these spares!

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Picture in Time: Glasgow 1297

Posted on Thursday 3 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

We carry on taking a look at Crich’s 1973 Transport Extravaganza for this week’s Picture in Time with Glasgow 1297 the tram seen in the picture.

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Posted in National Tramway Museum, Picture in Time | 1 Comment

Motor problem sidelines Standard 143

Posted on Wednesday 2 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

It was going to be the star of the September Spectacular weekend in Blackpool having been launched at the start of the week but in the end the Fylde Transport Trust’s Standard 143 ended up being a static exhibit after a motor problem meant it was unable to run under its own power. However, despite only being on static display at North Pier/Tower it still turned heads giving a foretaste of what is to come when the tram does finally run in service.

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway, Fylde Transport Trust | 3 Comments

In Preview: Wirral Bus & Tram Show

Posted on Wednesday 2 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

A busy three weeks of tram events come to an end on Sunday 6th October with the annual Wirral Bus and Tram Show taking place in Birkenhead – with five trams due to be in service during the day, including a special service between Pacific Road yard and Woodside Ferry.

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Work underway to demolish old South Shields station

Posted on Wednesday 2 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Work to demolish the first Tyne and Wear Metro station to have closed permanently since the network opened in 1980 at South Shields has started. The station closed to passengers on 8th July to make way for a brand new transport interchange which opened in August and now contractors have started to the painstaking task of demolishing the old structure in full.

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In Pictures: 33 goes blue and enters service – but still not the end of magenta

Posted on Tuesday 1 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

Sometimes we just get a bit carried away with the excitement of new liveries and forget about a tram which hasn’t been seen in action for a while. And that is precisely what has happened on the West Midlands Metro as our report last week that just 33 remained in magenta was actually wrong – 22 also retains the old livery, although it hasn’t been seen in service since 2nd September, and is now seemingly being prepared for the fitting of batteries. And in the meantime, 33 – which was still in magenta last week – has now received the full blue livery vinyls and has also entered service for the first with batteries.

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TfGM and KAM step in to help Heaton Park

Posted on Tuesday 1 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

It has been said that in adversity you see who your friends are and that is exactly the situation for the Heaton Park Tramway. As we reported last week the tramway had been hit by theft of overhead wire which had caused all operations to be ceased indefinitely whilst the damage was surveyed and an action plan was put in place to rectify it. Now on top of the crowd funding launched, Transport for Greater Manchester (TfGM) and Keolis Amey Metrolink (KAM) have stepped in to provide assistance in replacing the overhead.

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Picture in Time: Blackpool OMO 5

Posted on Tuesday 1 October 2019 by Gareth Prior

We leap forward from the 1970s to the 1990s for the next few weeks worth of Blackpool Picture in Time images and start off with a photo of OMO 5.

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