{"id":10600,"date":"2015-03-15T16:14:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-15T16:14:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10600"},"modified":"2015-03-15T16:14:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-15T16:14:17","slug":"rack-2-gets-stuffed","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10600","title":{"rendered":"Rack 2 gets stuffed"},"content":{"rendered":"

As expected, Blackpool & Fleetwood ‘Rack’ 2 <\/strong>has now taken up residence in the Great Exhibition Hall at Crich Tramway Village. This tram has been a popular member of the running fleet at Crich almost constantly since the commencement of electric tram operation there in 1964, but was withdrawn last year and is now likely to endure a lengthy period of inactivity. The tram has taken the place of Newcastle 102 <\/strong>which was a temporary addition to the static\u00a0exhibition\u00a0last year, and which now will presumably remain stored in a less visible area of the museum.<\/p>\n

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The move of car 2 <\/strong>to the Exhibition Hall is arguably a good decision, as it makes the tram much more visible to visitors and ensures that one of the oldest electric cars in the national collection is appropriately shown off, whilst also representing a tramcar type that was previously unrepresented in the ‘Century of Trams’ display. If this is to be a short term measure whilst 2 <\/strong>awaits its turn for workshop attention (it is understood that the car has worn tyres and is also well overdue for its eight-yearly overhaul), it could be seen as a welcome one. However, concerns are being expressed because a new interpretive panel has been produced detailing the history of the tram. The design of this follows the typical house style for the Exhibition Hall, whereas labels used on trams stored in the running sheds will be in a different design. This therefore gives the impression that ‘Rack’ 2 <\/strong>will probably be a static exhibit for the forseeable future – which would be a terrible waste of one of the museum’s most popular trams, especially as it was extensively rebuilt with a brand new underframe fitted in 1998, much more recently than many other operational trams at Crich last received this level of work.<\/p>\n

It has also been noticed that the new interpretive panels refers to the car as ‘Blackpool 2’ which is technically inaccurate, as is it is of course normally referred to as Blackpool & Fleetwood 2<\/strong>\u00a0as it appears in the livery of the Blackpool & Fleetwood Electric Tramroad Company, who were the owners of this tram and others like it when new, and were a seperate entity from Blackpool Corporation who were responsible for the town and promenade routes in Blackpool itself. This may seem a rather petty criticism, but the confusion is compounded by the fact that another Blackpool 2 <\/strong>still exists, in the form of a humble works car which, remarkably, is also owned by the Tramway Museum Society! Although now stored in a heavily stripped condition at Clay Cross, this tram is still a part of the national collection and makes ‘Rack’ 2<\/strong>‘s apparent identity crisis all the more bizarre. It has been suggested that the shortened name for the tram is to fit in with the house style of labelling in the Exhibition Hall, but for a designated museum with a responsibility to educate its visitors about its exhibits this does seem a rather questionable justification.<\/p>\n

Hopefully one day in the not too distant future, Blackpool & Fleetwood 2 <\/strong>will return to service and continue its lengthy operating career but for now, it seems that the tram’s advertised farewell trip last October may have been its last for quite some time and with numerous other trams awaiting workshop capacity and funding at Crich, it remains to be seen when 2 <\/strong>will receive the attention it so richly deserves.<\/p>\n

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The sad sight of Blackpool & Fleetwood 2 in the Exhibition Hall at Crich, surrounded by trams which have not turned a wheel in passenger service for decades. Also visible in the foreground is the new board detailing its history. (Photo courtesy of Crich Tramway Village)<\/p><\/div>\n

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As expected, Blackpool & Fleetwood ‘Rack’ 2 has now taken up residence in the Great Exhibition Hall at Crich Tramway Village. This tram has been a popular member of the running fleet at Crich almost constantly since the commencement of … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10600"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10603,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10600\/revisions\/10603"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}