{"id":24196,"date":"2018-10-09T18:33:18","date_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:33:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=24196"},"modified":"2018-10-09T18:33:18","modified_gmt":"2018-10-09T17:33:18","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-illuminated-western-train-733734-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=24196","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Illuminated Western Train 733+734"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another look at one of Blackpool\u2019s illuminated feature cars in this edition of Picture in Time and this time around it is probably the most popular of all \u2013 the <strong>Western Train<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->The third of the feature cars to be constructed in the late 1950s\/early 1960s the Western Train was originally built using <strong>Railcoach 209<\/strong> (Locomotive) and <strong>Pantograph 174<\/strong> (Carriage) and entered service during the 1962 illuminations joining the Blackpool Belle and the Rocket in operating tours. It became firmly established in service each year carrying on as part of the operational fleet until 1999 when it as officially withdrawn from use at the end of the illuminations. But for the Western Train that was not to be the end of the story as thanks to funding from the Heritage Lottery Fund it was to be fully restored to service. This saw the Locomotive (with <strong>Twin Car Trailer 677<\/strong>\u2019s frame used) and Carriage returned to action in time for the 2008 illuminations. The pair have remained in service for each illumination season since.<\/p>\n<p>In this view we see <strong>733<\/strong>+<strong>734<\/strong> in the mid 1970s whilst the tram was advertising Woolworth.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_24197\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=24197\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-24197\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-24197\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-24197\" title=\"733-pg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/733-pg-550x352.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"352\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/733-pg-550x352.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/733-pg-1024x655.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/10\/733-pg.jpg 1253w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-24197\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Peter Gough<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another look at one of Blackpool\u2019s illuminated feature cars in this edition of Picture in Time and this time around it is probably the most popular of all \u2013 the Western Train.<\/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\/24196"}],"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=24196"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24196\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24199,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24196\/revisions\/24199"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=24196"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=24196"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=24196"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}