{"id":13093,"date":"2015-11-09T20:39:30","date_gmt":"2015-11-09T19:39:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=13093"},"modified":"2015-11-09T20:39:30","modified_gmt":"2015-11-09T19:39:30","slug":"blackpools-soggy-end-to-the-season","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=13093","title":{"rendered":"Blackpool’s soggy end to the season"},"content":{"rendered":"

The final weekend of the 2015 Blackpool illuminations, and with it the end of the resort’s peak season, was marked by an enhanced heritage tram service operating on both Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th November. Both days saw six heritage trams in use during the day, whilst during the evenings the usual illumination tour output was boosted by the use of some more unusual vehicles staying out well past their regular bedtimes!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Unfortunately, as has been the case with quite a few of Blackpool’s enhanced running days this year, the weather was very poor on both days which heavily restricted the use of open top Balloon ‘Princess Alice’ 706 <\/strong>which had been scheduled to run on both days prior to its expected withdrawal for workshop attention. Therefore on the Saturday, the initial output for the day comprised Standard 147<\/strong>, Brush Railcoach 631<\/strong>, Centenary car 648<\/strong>, Twin set 675+685 <\/strong>and Balloon 723<\/strong>, with Balloon 717 <\/strong>joining in later on. The first five cars all ran to Fleetwood during the afternoon with 723<\/strong>‘s visit being especially notable, as it had not run to the northern end of the line since May 2013, and not in green and cream since 2009! Despite the novelty value of this tour, the tram was not that well patronised although those who were on board certainly appreciated it. The last heritage tour of the day to Fleetwood was worked by car 147 <\/strong>which made a glorious street in Lord Street as darkness fell. However, that was not the end of the excitement as the evening saw further trams emerge from Rigby Road to perform illumination tours. As the rain had cleared by this time, ‘Princess Alice’ 706 <\/strong>emerged along with Boat 600<\/strong>, however the most unusual appearance was that of 648 <\/strong>which duly became the first Centenary car to perform an illuminations tour since the tramway upgrade, and this was also thought to have been its first use in darkness since 2011. Unfortunately an accident near the Tower caused major disruption during the latter part of the evening and resulted in the tours being curtailed slightly early, although the Boat car did manage two tours despite the less than ideal weather conditions!<\/p>\n

Sunday was initially a drier day but soon turned for the worse, being blighted by strong winds and heavy rain which naturally affected the tram output. It had been intended to run visiting Ex-Towing car 680 <\/strong>but this suffered an electrical fault before leaving depot, and so its place was taken by Balloon 717 <\/strong>which was joined by Balloon 715<\/strong>, Twin set 272+T2 <\/strong>and Centenary cars 642 <\/strong>and 648<\/strong>. Once again a sixth tram emerged in the afternoon and this time it was Balloon 701 <\/strong>which performed a few short promenade trips whilst the other heritage cars journeyed to Fleetwood, concluding with 717<\/strong>. Due to the abysmal weather just four trams were used for illumination tours but these did include Centenary car 642 <\/strong>– chosen deliberately as this meant that every operational tram in the heritage fleet had worked at least one tour of the lights during 2015, a very healthy total of nineteen different cars.<\/p>\n

The last weekend of the season may not have been quite as spectacular as hoped due to the horrible weather conditions, particularly on the Sunday afternoon, but still provided a fitting finale to what has been an incredibly historic and successful year for Blackpool’s historic trams. However, their absence from service will be a short one, as ‘Santa Specials’ are set to run on three consecutive Saturdays in December, whilst it has been suggested that some further winter events may also take place before next Easter… watch this space!<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A lovely evening scene at Fleetwood with 723 on Pharos Street for the first time since making a surprise return to use to help celebrate the tramway's 130th anniversary. (Photo by Rob Bray)<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

A rather more pristine Balloon car, 717 at Bispham in much worse weather conditions on Sunday 8th November.<\/p><\/div>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Once considered mundane, in the 'heritage' era the sight of two Centenary cars passing in service is a novel one. 642 and 648 are seen together at North Pier on the last day of the main 2015 season. (Photos x 2 by Andrew Waddington)<\/p><\/div>\n

\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The final weekend of the 2015 Blackpool illuminations, and with it the end of the resort’s peak season, was marked by an enhanced heritage tram service operating on both Saturday 7th & Sunday 8th November. Both days saw six heritage … 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":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093"}],"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=13093"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":13099,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13093\/revisions\/13099"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=13093"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=13093"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=13093"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}