{"id":18275,"date":"2017-08-17T18:15:04","date_gmt":"2017-08-17T17:15:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=18275"},"modified":"2021-02-13T19:06:38","modified_gmt":"2021-02-13T19:06:38","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-balloon-702","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=18275","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloon 702"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In this edition of Picture in Time we are once again in Blackpool with the tram featured being one of the iconic Balloon cars \u2013 <strong>702<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The third of the Balloon cars to arrive in Blackpool <strong>239<\/strong> \u2013 as it was originally numbered \u2013 entered service in September 1934 and at this time it was an open topper as were the first 13 of these English Electric built double deckers. With the start of World War Two all trams were fully enclosed and for <strong>239<\/strong> this happened in April 1942. As with all members of the Balloon Car fleet over the years the tram underwent a number of alterations and was renumbered <strong>702<\/strong> in the 1968 mass renumbering scheme. It continued to soldier on in service until it was withdrawn from service at the end of 2009, but not before it had become the last of the class to run on the traditional tramway all the way to Fleetwood Ferry. Acquired by the Manchester Transport Museum Society it left Blackpool in 2010 and after a period of display at the Museum of Museums and then storage at the East Lancashire Railway it arrived at its new home on the Heaton Park Tramway at the end of April 2014.<\/p>\n<p>Both these photos date from 2005 and in this first view we see <strong>702<\/strong> in its heritage livery \u2013 plus heritage destination blinds \u2013 at Pleasure Beach on 4th September 2005.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=38253\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-38253\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-38253\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/1.702-gp-550x365.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/1.702-gp-550x365.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/1.702-gp-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/1.702-gp-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/1.702-gp.jpg 1229w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a>And then on 10<sup>th<\/sup> September we find <strong>702<\/strong> again, this time at North Pier and showing the opposite side with its different advert.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_38254\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=38254\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-38254\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-38254\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-38254\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2.702-gp-550x365.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"365\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2.702-gp-550x365.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2.702-gp-1024x680.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2.702-gp-768x510.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/08\/2.702-gp.jpg 1229w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-38254\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Both Photographs by Gareth Prior<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In this edition of Picture in Time we are once again in Blackpool with the tram featured being one of the iconic Balloon cars \u2013 702.<\/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\/18275"}],"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=18275"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18275\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38255,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18275\/revisions\/38255"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18275"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18275"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18275"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}