{"id":25461,"date":"2019-01-03T20:02:24","date_gmt":"2019-01-03T20:02:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=25461"},"modified":"2019-01-03T20:02:31","modified_gmt":"2019-01-03T20:02:31","slug":"christmas-boating-at-blackpool-the-sequel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=25461","title":{"rendered":"Christmas Boating at Blackpool &#8211; The Sequel!"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last opportunity to take a ride on a heritage tram in Blackpool during 2018 was provided by the Fylde Tramway Society&#8217;s annual Christmas tour, which took place on Saturday 29th December. This was advertised as featuring recently repainted <strong>Centenary car 642 <\/strong>alongside <strong>Railcoach 680<\/strong>, although on the day the former suffered a fault before the tour even started and had to be replaced by its sister <strong>648<\/strong>. However, publicity for the tour had also mentioned an extra surprise which for many people stole the show &#8211; <strong>Open Boat 227<\/strong>!<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Two years ago the same event featured <strong>Boat 600<\/strong>\u00a0as a &#8216;surprise&#8217; extra car, and this time it was the turn of <strong>227 <\/strong>which has of course only recently returned to service after a lengthy period of workshop attention. The tour provided not only a rare chance to ride on the Boat car during the winter, but also its first run to Fleetwood for over two years. First the tour cars <strong>227 <\/strong>and <strong>648 <\/strong>proceeded north from Rigby Road to Little Bispham, before heading to Pleasure Beach and then on to Fleetwood! On the return journey south <strong>227 <\/strong>headed back to the depot so that <strong>680 <\/strong>could take its place for the final leg of the tour, which included a further run to Fleetwood after darkness had fallen.<\/p>\n<p>After what has been a challenging year in some respects, the Blackpool heritage trams&#8217; year was brought to a fine finish with this memorable tour which was very well attended, especially for this time of year. We now look forward to many more runs by the overhauled <strong>227 <\/strong>to Fleetwood in 2019 &#8211; but that December outing will no doubt be remembered by those on board for many years to come!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_25462\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=25462\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-25462\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25462\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25462\" title=\"Xmas Boat 1\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-1.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-1.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-1-550x412.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25462\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">In remarkably sunny conditions for a December day, 648 and 227 pose for the cameras at Pleasure Beach during their Christmas outing.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_25463\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=25463\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-25463\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25463\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25463\" title=\"Xmas Boat 2\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-2.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-2.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-2-550x412.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25463\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boat 227 basks in the winter sunshine on Pharos Street on its first appearance in Fleetwood for over two years, and its first visit since it was named &#39;Charlie Cairoli&#39;.<\/p><\/div>\n<div id=\"attachment_25464\" style=\"width: 970px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=25464\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-25464\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-25464\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-full wp-image-25464\" title=\"Xmas Boat 3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-3.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"960\" height=\"720\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-3.jpg 960w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/01\/Xmas-Boat-3-550x412.jpg 550w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 960px) 100vw, 960px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-25464\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Boat 227 is back at North Pier with passengers leaving the tram, perhaps to warm up! (All photos by Rob Bray)<\/p><\/div>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\">\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last opportunity to take a ride on a heritage tram in Blackpool during 2018 was provided by the Fylde Tramway Society&#8217;s annual Christmas tour, which took place on Saturday 29th December. This was advertised as featuring recently repainted Centenary &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=25461\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,28],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461"}],"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=25461"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25466,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25461\/revisions\/25466"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=25461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=25461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=25461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}