“Staff shortage” – probably the two most dreaded words to impact upon the Blackpool tramway in the last couple of years. Understandably, whenever these two words rear their collective ugly head, the heritage tours have often suffered as Blackpool Transport quite rightly focus their resources on providing a good quality of service to its core customers who use their trams and buses as a means of transportation. Sadly, just a few days into the 2015 operating season, the heritage service has already been affected although on the plus side tours have still run on every day it was advertised to do so.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
After a very successful start over the weekend, the heritage tours faced their first real challenge of the season on Monday 30th March. On this day it had been planned that one tram would be crewed by volunteers and another by paid staff, but due to a shortage of staff – no doubt a situation made worse by the provision of an enhanced service on the Flexity trams for the Easter school holidays – no crew could be spared. Therefore, with just two volunteers available for duty, Balloon 717 <\/strong>ran solo for the whole of the day. With yet more dismal weather, this probably wasn’t noticed by too many people as Blackpool was largely devoid of visitors on this cold and miserable day.<\/p>\n Things did not improve the next day either, with even more wind and rain battering the Fylde coast. For the second day running no paid staff were available to man the heritage tours so it was left to volunteers to run the show, with Balloon 700 <\/strong>chosen this time to run alone between Pleasure Beach and North Pier. The use of this tram on such a limited heritage service was perhaps a questionable choice as, being part of the modernised ‘B Fleet’, it is not technically classed as a heritage tram. Despite this, there were still a few hardy souls who braved the weather to enjoy a trip along the windswept seafront aboard 700<\/strong>. Further issues were also experienced with the points at Manchester Square, resulting in the tram having to be stabled at Starr Gate at the end of its duty – the second time in a week that 700 <\/strong>had visited the southern end of the tramway.<\/p>\n Thankfully normal service was restored on Wednesday 1st April, with Centenary car 648 <\/strong>and Balloon 719 <\/strong>in action – the latter again a slightly controversial choice, but one that was welcomed by crew and passengers due to it having heaters fitted! It is hoped that the previous two days were a fluke and that the cancellation of tours will not become commonplace as the season wears on, as this was one of the various factors which crippled the tours in 2012. For the heritage operation to succeed, it is imperative that an attractive offer is available to customers whenever it is advertised to run, to ensure that regular customers and those with a \u00a0casual interest in the traditional trams are persuaded to part with their cash. Hopefully the Easter weekend will be a much better time for the tramway and, with as many as six heritage trams scheduled to appear on both Sunday 5th and Monday 6th April, there is great potential for a fantastic weekend. Let’s just hope that the weather will finally improve soon!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" “Staff shortage” – probably the two most dreaded words to impact upon the Blackpool tramway in the last couple of years. Understandably, whenever these two words rear their collective ugly head, the heritage tours have often suffered as Blackpool Transport … Continue reading