{"id":190,"date":"2012-03-21T20:38:40","date_gmt":"2012-03-21T20:38:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=190"},"modified":"2012-03-21T20:38:40","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T20:38:40","slug":"life%e2%80%99s-one-long-holiday-for-centenary-645","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=190","title":{"rendered":"Life\u2019s one long holiday for Centenary 645"},"content":{"rendered":"

The latest tram to be moved away from the Blackpool tramway was Centenary car 645 <\/strong>which left Rigby Road early on Thursday 19th January. The tram followed a familiar pattern of being loaded up onto a Scott\u2019s Heavy Haulage low loader the previous afternoon, ready for a very early departure. It was then taken to its new home in Little Singleton following purchase by the Windy Harbour Caravan Park \u2013 which is owned by the same company as the Broadwater Caravan Park, the new home of sister car 643<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Ahead of its departure, 645 <\/strong>paid its last ever visit to the Electrical Compound at Rigby Road earlier in the week, where its pantograph tower was removed \u2013 along with the bucket fitted on top, which has strangely remained in situ on the other departures! The car also had its end skirt panels removed to aid the loading process, which left it looking rather strange. 645<\/strong>\u2018s final day of service in Blackpool had of course ended badly as the tram had
\nfailed whilst in service on 6th November and had to be towed back to depot. As this was the last day of the 2011 season, the car was never repaired and so it had to be pushed into the Electrical Compound even before its pantograph and tower had been removed.<\/p>\n

Like 643<\/strong>, it is anticipated that 645<\/strong>\u2018s interior will be refurbished for use as a combined gift shop and cafe. Whilst these trams are not strictly preserved, at least they have survived the big fleet cull and who knows, there remains a slight possibility that either car could one day be retrieved as a future restoration project by a preservation society, so long as they survive in some form. It is not currently known whether either tram will be repainted by their new owners.<\/p>\n

Just over a week ago the entire eight-strong Centenary class all lived together at Rigby Road, but the departure of 645 <\/strong>means that only three of them remain there today. These cars are 642, 647 <\/strong>and 648 <\/strong>– none of which have been sold as far as we are aware, although of course this doesn\u2019t necessarily confirm that they remain unsold as the sale
\nof both 643 <\/strong>and 645 <\/strong>was not common knowledge until the trams had left Blackpool.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The latest tram to be moved away from the Blackpool tramway was Centenary car 645 which left Rigby Road early on Thursday 19th January. The tram followed a familiar pattern of being loaded up onto a Scott\u2019s Heavy Haulage low … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","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\/190"}],"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\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=190"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":191,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/190\/revisions\/191"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=190"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=190"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=190"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}