{"id":10679,"date":"2015-03-21T18:31:17","date_gmt":"2015-03-21T18:31:17","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10679"},"modified":"2015-03-21T18:31:17","modified_gmt":"2015-03-21T18:31:17","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-balloons-at-tower","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=10679","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloons at Tower"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s back to Blackpool again for the latest photo in our Picture in Time series but this time we feature not one, not two but three Balloon Cars as we travel back until 1969.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->This view was taken on 24th July 1969 and shows two stages of the evolution of the Balloon Car. On the far left is <strong>707<\/strong> which retains twin indicator blinds and the tram is joined by two Balloons which have been fitted with single destination displays \u2013 <strong>719<\/strong> on the centre track and <strong>716<\/strong> running a service to Pleasure Beach.<\/p>\n<p>Today both <strong>707<\/strong> and <strong>719<\/strong> remain in Blackpool \u2013 not that either look anything like they do here with the former being rebuilt with flat ends in 1998 and <strong>719<\/strong> also being heavily refurbished albeit retaining its traditional shape. <strong>707<\/strong> carries an expired all over advert for Coral Island whilst <strong>719<\/strong> is in the Purple and White livery style and is due to be used in service once again during 2015. As for <strong>716<\/strong> this tram last ran in 2003 before it was withdrawn from service and eventually sold to Ptarmigan Transport Services in Perth. However this firm went into liquidation and the tram was moved to a scrapyard in late 2013. The last reports of it remaining in existence were received in early 2014 after which time the trail has gone cold.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_10680\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=10680\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-10680\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-10680\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-10680\" title=\"balloons\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/balloons-550x354.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"354\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/balloons-550x354.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/balloons-1024x659.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/03\/balloons.jpg 1239w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-10680\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">(Photo by Tony Sullivan)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s back to Blackpool again for the latest photo in our Picture in Time series but this time we feature not one, not two but three Balloon Cars as we travel back until 1969.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10679"}],"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\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10679"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10679\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10682,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10679\/revisions\/10682"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10679"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10679"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10679"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}