{"id":17025,"date":"2017-03-31T20:47:30","date_gmt":"2017-03-31T19:47:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=17025"},"modified":"2017-03-31T20:47:31","modified_gmt":"2017-03-31T19:47:31","slug":"in-pictures-summer-sunshine-for-winter-gold-in-blackpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=17025","title":{"rendered":"In Pictures: Summer sunshine for Winter Gold in Blackpool"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest Gold operating weekend for Blackpool’s heritage trams took place on the weekend of 25th & 26th March. Although billed as a ‘Winter Gold’ event, this actually took place a few days after spring had officially started, whilst the start of British summertime also occurred over the same weekend. The familiar pattern of having a frequent heritage tram service using six trams on each day ran, with a number of old favourites making a welcome return to use following a winter lay-off.<\/p>\n

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Over the winter period two Balloon cars – red & white 701 <\/strong>and purple & white 711 <\/strong>– were fitted with snowploughs, although unsurprisingly neither were needed. These have now been removed and both trams returned to passenger service on 25th March.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Saturday 25th March was a glorious sunny day and witnessed the first Boat car use of 2017, with prototype 600 <\/strong>out and proving extremely popular, with its trip to Fleetwood being in particularly high demand! The illuminated Western Train 733+734 <\/strong>was also used in normal service for the first time this year, although it had appeared previously for a private hire, and the now regular mobile shop selling tram souvenirs was positioned on board the carriage. The day’s heritage line-up was completed by Box 40 <\/strong>and Balloon\u00a0717<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Although Sunday 26th March was another sunny day it was noticeably cooler. Centenary car 648 <\/strong>was used on heritage tours for the first time this year, whilst Bolton 66 <\/strong>was running with genuine Bolton locations on its destination blinds in recognition of the 70th anniversary of that system’s last trams. Also in use were Ex-Towing Railcoach 680<\/strong>, Balloon cars 715 <\/strong>and 723<\/strong>, and once again, the Western Train 733+734<\/strong>. All in all, a very impressive turnout of vehicles in some splendid weather – not bad at all considering it isn’t even Easter yet!<\/p>\n

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Balloon 711 is seen entering the Pleasure Beach loop for the first time in 2017, ahead of its morning run to Fleetwood Ferry.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Now devoid of its snowplough, Routemaster liveried Balloon 701 pauses on Pharos Street in Fleetwood before heading back south on March 25th.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Also on 25th March, Boat 600 is shown at North Pier in ideal weather conditions.<\/p><\/div>\n

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A day later, and Centenary car 648 was captured at Cabin on its debut outing for the year.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Finally, the Western Train is depicted at Bispham heading south, also on Sunday 26th March. (All photos by Rob Bray)<\/p><\/div>\n

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The latest Gold operating weekend for Blackpool’s heritage trams took place on the weekend of 25th & 26th March. Although billed as a ‘Winter Gold’ event, this actually took place a few days after spring had officially started, whilst the … 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\/17025"}],"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=17025"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17033,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17025\/revisions\/17033"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=17025"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=17025"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=17025"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}