Heaton Park Tramways receives a delivery from Metrolink

Posted on Friday 10 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

The Heaton Park Tramway – the UK’s one truly preserved tramway and described in a recent press release as Manchester’s second tramway (although you could suggest Metrolink is Manchester’s second tramway!) – have recently received a new delivery from Manchester Metrolink. But this is not the much anticipated arrival of T68 1007 – that excitement is for the future – but rather a selection of tram rail and fittings which are spares from the construction of the Second City Crossing.

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Posted in Heaton Park Tramway, Manchester Metrolink | 2 Comments

English Trams and Trolleybuses tour now on sale

Posted on Friday 10 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Have you ever wanted to do a tour of many of England’s tram and trolleybus systems and museums but haven’t quite known how to organise it? Well the good news is an escorted tour of several systems across England is being run by renowned holiday firm Ffestiniog Travel this year and there are still places available!

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Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloon 701

Posted on Thursday 9 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Picture in Time today takes a look at another long gone all over advert, indeed the hotel being advertised no longer exists either, as we feature Blackpool Balloon 701 in 2006 whilst it was carrying this design for the Palm Beach Hotel.

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In Pictures: 3116 back in service on Metrolink

Posted on Tuesday 7 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

A few days ago we brought you the news that Manchester Metrolink 3116’s had finally returned to service some five months after it last turned a wheel in anger. Further to that story it can now be confirmed that the tram has now visited Eccles and Ashton-under-Lyne and then worked with 3094 on the East Didsbury circuit. With thanks to Steve Kemp we bring you a few photos of 3116 back in use.

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Posted in Manchester Metrolink | 1 Comment

Picture in Time: Leeds 600 & Glasgow 812

Posted on Tuesday 7 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

It is the summer of 1971 for this edition of Picture in Time as we head to a quarry in Derbyshire which is, of course, home to the National Tramway Museum or as it is known today the Crich Tramway Village.

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

Douglas 28 on the move

Posted on Monday 6 February 2017 by Andrew Waddington

It may be remembered that last year, a small number of Douglas horse trams were sold off at auction. Initially it was announced that, once sold, the trams would all have to be removed from Strathallan depot within a fairly short timescale, but one of them managed to remain on site into 2017. However, on 1st February Douglas 28 finally left the tramway behind en route to a new home at an unconfirmed location.

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Posted in Douglas Bay Horse Tramway | 2 Comments

In Pictures: Sheffield to Rotherham Tram-Train project

Posted on Sunday 5 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

This week not only do we report on a breakdown of one of the tram-train vehicles but we also bring you another photo update on the construction side of the project from the camera of Glyn Hill. With the project now not likely to see its first services until 2018 (at the earliest) there is still some progress on the construction and in this update we concentrate at the Rotherham end of the line.

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Posted in South Yorkshire Supertram | 3 Comments

399 204 breaks down on test (**Photo now added**)

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Firstly, the good news – it is now obvious that test running of the tram-trains is underway on the wider Stagecoach Supertram network. Unfortunately, the reason why we can confirm this is because one of the vehicles broke down in the early hours of Monday 30th January causing delays to Blue route trams at the start of service.

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M5000 3116 returns to service

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Having last operated in July 2016 Manchester Metrolink M5000 3116 has now returned to service following attention in the works. Following successful tests the tram returned to service this week being initially used on the Exchange Square to Rochdale Town Centre service. As things stand currently the tram has not been to Eccles, Ashton-under-Lyne or East Didsbury.

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Lorry gets stuck on Midland Metro tracks

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Midland Metro services were into Birmingham City Centre were suspended for nearly six hours on Tuesday 31st January after a lorry driver got lost which ended up which his vehicle becoming stuck on the grassed section of track between Bull Street and St Chad’s.

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Posted in West Midlands Metro | 5 Comments

Silver and Highly Commended for Seaton Tramway at awards

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Seaton Tramway are once again celebrating following the receipt of awards at the recent South West Tourism Excellence Awards. Although not walking away with the main prizes Seaton were awarded a Silver Award in one category whilst also being highly commended in another.

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British Trams Online downtime

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

Some of you may have noticed that for a period on Friday 3rd February British Trams Online was completely unavailable. Despite my initial fears that I had again managed to forget to renew the hosting package (not realising I could be that stupid again!)  it later transpired that was due to major issues at the hosting company which had seen all websites hosted with them become unavailable. As you can see the website is now back in its entirety and regular updates will resume shortly. There won’t be a main site update this weekend anyway – for unrelated reasons – but we will update this page with more news over the weekend before the full site returns later in February.

Posted in Site News | 1 Comment

Picture in Time: Nottingham Express Transit 206

Posted on Saturday 4 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

We head off to Nottingham for today’s instalment of Picture in Time with an image coming from 2007 of one of the original Incentro trams in the original livery. It is no. 206.

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Picture in Time: Blackpool OMO 1

Posted on Thursday 2 February 2017 by Gareth Prior

The very first of the One Man Operated trams is the feature of today’s Picture in Time as we take a look at the Plum and Custard liveried no. 1 in 1973.

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway, Picture in Time | 1 Comment

Picture in Time: Seaton 6

Posted on Tuesday 31 January 2017 by Gareth Prior

We are back on the Seaton Tramway for today’s view from the archives as part of Picture in Time with no. 6 the tram being featured.

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Heritage Tram Tours launch 2017 in style!

Posted on Monday 30 January 2017 by Andrew Waddington

The weekend of January 28th & 29th saw the first heritage tram tours of 2017 operating in Blackpool, with the now familiar ‘Gold’ service in operation to start the year with a bang! This ran to the usual pattern with a total of six different trams running per day, mostly between Pleasure Beach and Bispham or Little Bispham with additional journeys to Fleetwood and a variety of other destinations spread out across the day.

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway | 4 Comments

New ‘Limited Stop’ signs on Blackpool’s heritage trams

Posted on Monday 30 January 2017 by Andrew Waddington

A small yet welcome change has adorned a number of Blackpool’s traditional trams for the start of the 2017 operating season. Since the heritage service was revived with a more frequent service and volunteer crews in 2015, trams have carried notices informing would-be passengers that they operate a limited stop tour service, in an attempt to help confused people differentiate them from the modern LRT trams.

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Posted in Blackpool Tramway | 2 Comments

This week on British Trams Online

Posted on Sunday 29 January 2017 by Gareth Prior

We head to Manchester for a small selection of photos this week:

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Posted in Manchester Metrolink, Site News | 3 Comments

Picture in Time: Midland Metro 12

Posted on Saturday 28 January 2017 by Gareth Prior

Off to the West Midlands for this edition of Picture in Time as we take a look at one of the original T69 trams which operated on Midland Metro.

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Passenger numbers up on Midland Metro

Posted on Friday 27 January 2017 by Gareth Prior

New figures reported by the Wolverhampton Express and Star have shown that Midland Metro is more popular than ever with more than a million passengers being carried on the line in November and December – a 300,000 increase. The increased passenger numbers come at a time when Midland Metro is in a major expansion programme with the line through Birmingham City Centre just the start of things to come.

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Posted in West Midlands Metro | 5 Comments