{"id":12346,"date":"2015-08-29T20:53:07","date_gmt":"2015-08-29T19:53:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=12346"},"modified":"2015-08-30T12:41:04","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T11:41:04","slug":"black-white-blinds-for-a-red-white-balloon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=12346","title":{"rendered":"Black &#038; white blinds for a red &#038; white Balloon"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Almost exactly one year after debuting in service in its recreated red &amp; white &#8216;Routemaster&#8217; livery as first seen in 1991, <strong>Blackpool Balloon 701 <\/strong>now has an even more authentic appearance thanks to the addition of black and white destination blinds to the car. These use a style of lettering which is appropriate to this tram and the time when it previously ran in this colour scheme.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p><strong>701<\/strong>\u00a0has become the latest member of the heritage fleet to receive traditional black and white destination blinds, but whereas the others had new blinds made specially for them it is believed that <strong>701<\/strong>&#8216;s set are an original pair which have been supplied. Only the large Fylde Tramway Society logos on the staircase panels and the lack of Travelcard adverts now give away that any new pictures of <strong>701 <\/strong>were not taken in the 1990s!<\/p>\n<p>The tram debuted in passenger service on the green heritage output on Saturday 29th August, marking the start of the Bank Holiday weekend&#8217;s enhanced service. Also in use were Boats <strong>227 <\/strong>and <strong>230 <\/strong>as well as <strong>Twin set 272+T2 <\/strong>which operated a late afternoon journey to Fleetwood. Extra variety was provided by the use of two modified Balloon cars on specials, and unlike on previous heritage event days both trams ran in ordinary public service, using the platforms as intended. Initially just <strong>700 <\/strong>ran on specials but it was later joined by sister car <strong>711 <\/strong>which duly stayed out into the evening, and even managed a very unusual sunset trip through to Fleetwood. This may well have been the latest in the day that one of the purple and white Balloons has ever run and was certainly an unexpected highlight on this fine sunny Saturday.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_12347\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=12347\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-12347\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-12347\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-12347\" title=\"701 Lee Andrews\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/701-Lee-Andrews.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"540\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/701-Lee-Andrews.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/08\/701-Lee-Andrews-550x309.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-12347\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Balloon 701 shows off one of its smart new destination blinds at North Pier whilst employed on the heritage service on August 29th. (Photo by Lee Andrews)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Almost exactly one year after debuting in service in its recreated red &amp; white &#8216;Routemaster&#8217; livery as first seen in 1991, Blackpool Balloon 701 now has an even more authentic appearance thanks to the addition of black and white destination &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=12346\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12346"}],"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=12346"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12346\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":12354,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12346\/revisions\/12354"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=12346"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=12346"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=12346"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}