{"id":16930,"date":"2017-03-24T21:06:24","date_gmt":"2017-03-24T21:06:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=16930"},"modified":"2017-03-24T21:06:24","modified_gmt":"2017-03-24T21:06:24","slug":"balloon-703-returns-home","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=16930","title":{"rendered":"Balloon 703 returns home"},"content":{"rendered":"

Another tram has returned home to Blackpool with Balloon car 703<\/strong> \u2013 lately masquerading as Sunderland 101<\/strong> \u2013 arriving back at Rigby Road Depot on Thursday 23rd March following the lengthy journey from Beamish.<\/p>\n

It seems hard to believe that 703<\/strong> had been away at Beamish for almost seven years, initially on loan from the Lancastrian Transport Trust before being purchased by Beamish, but a change in priorities at the museum has seen the tram deemed surplus to requirements. 703<\/strong> last ran in Blackpool in June 2009 when it was withdrawn from service requiring workshop attention and it was soon picked up by the LTT. A deal was reached with Beamish which would see the tram become \u201cSunderland 101<\/strong>\u201d and go on loan there and to this end it was painted in the familiar Red and White Sunderland livery. Although it didn\u2019t operate in passenger service in Blackpool in this condition it did undertake one run on the tramway for the benefit of passengers. Having made the trip to Beamish in 2010 a large amount of time was taken in preparing the tram for service with its first passenger trips not being until 2011. It soon established itself as a useful high capacity tram and remained in service until 2015 when it was withdrawn after a tyre failed during a routine inspection. It was decided that the time it would take to repair the tyre was better used on the other trams in the fleet and it remained sidelined \u2013 literally as it was moved sideways in the tram depot off the tracks to allow the other trams in the fleet to be housed undercover.<\/p>\n

At the end of 2016 the tram \u2013 along with Brush 621<\/strong> \u2013 was offered to the Blackpool Heritage Trust and although unlike 621<\/strong> it wasn\u2019t possible to immediately transport the tram back home. A crowd funding appeal was launched to pay for its transport with the money required raised in just 24 hours. However as it was still off the tracks it had to wait its time to head back to Blackpool with the date finally arriving on 22nd March. This day saw a major shunt move at Beamish with 703<\/strong> rerailed \u2013 after a temporary repair was made to its tyre which had caused its withdrawal \u2013 and moved out of the depot and onto track 3 to wait for the low loader.<\/p>\n

In addition to 703<\/strong>\u2019s move the chance was taken to move the Newcastle & Gosforth horse tram from the RHEC into the tram depot where its restoration will now continue. The day also saw the rare sight of the remains of Gateshead 52<\/strong> in the open with recent arrival Oporto C65<\/strong> also shunted onto the depot fan. Footage of the shunt can be seen on Beamish\u2019s You Tube page at https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=79li0qUkBFE<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Once the shunt had been completed a Scott\u2019s low loader arrived at Beamish and following a quick loading Sunderland 101 left Beamish including a trip through the town one last time, albeit on the back of a lorry. Departing the north east early on Thursday 23rd March the tram arrived back at Rigby Road in the early evening. Again a swift unloading was undertaken and the Unimog shunted 703<\/strong> back into the depot for the first time since 2010.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Another tram has returned home to Blackpool with Balloon car 703 \u2013 lately masquerading as Sunderland 101 \u2013 arriving back at Rigby Road Depot on Thursday 23rd March following the lengthy journey from Beamish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930"}],"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=16930"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":16931,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/16930\/revisions\/16931"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=16930"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=16930"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=16930"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}