{"id":15351,"date":"2016-09-11T07:23:38","date_gmt":"2016-09-11T06:23:38","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=15351"},"modified":"2016-09-11T07:23:39","modified_gmt":"2016-09-11T06:23:39","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-illuminated-rocket-732-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=15351","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Illuminated Rocket 732"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>With the Illuminations now in full light in Blackpool it seems an opportune moment to return to the north west coast for another view from the archives of one of the Illuminated Feature Cars. This time it is the distinctive <strong>Rocket<\/strong> which features in a 1962 image.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Granted you do tend to lose a bit of the spectacle of an Illuminated Tram when the photo is in black and white but nevertheless this photo of Tramnik One outside Rigby Road Depot is a fascinating image \u2013 and its not just the <strong>Rocket<\/strong> which your attention is drawn to! It is October 1962 and <strong>The Rocket<\/strong> is a little over a year old having entered service in September 1961 as the second of a new generation of feature cars. Based on the underframe of <strong>Pantograph 168<\/strong> it had only taken a mere 5 months for the rebuild to be completed. Over the years advertisers came and advertisers went but the Rocket remained an integral part of the Illuminations each year until the end of the 1999 season when it was withdrawn from service requiring workshop attention. Initially acquired by the Lancastrian Transport Trust <strong>732<\/strong> spent the 2012 and 2013 seasons on display at Gynn Square roundabout before joining the Blackpool heritage tram fleet at Rigby Road where it awaits its turn for restoration.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_15352\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=15352\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-15352\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-15352\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-15352\" title=\"732-bh\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/732-bh-550x366.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/732-bh-550x366.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/732-bh-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/732-bh.jpg 1274w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-15352\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Bob Hodges<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>With the Illuminations now in full light in Blackpool it seems an opportune moment to return to the north west coast for another view from the archives of one of the Illuminated Feature Cars. This time it is the distinctive &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=15351\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/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\/15351"}],"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=15351"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15351\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15364,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15351\/revisions\/15364"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15351"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15351"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15351"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}