{"id":28857,"date":"2019-07-23T18:16:07","date_gmt":"2019-07-23T17:16:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=28857"},"modified":"2019-07-23T18:16:07","modified_gmt":"2019-07-23T17:16:07","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-balloon-700-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=28857","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloon 700"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We feature a tram in today\u2019s Blackpool edition of Picture in Time in a much remembered condition \u2013 the wartime Green and Cream liveried <strong>Balloon 700<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->Balloon 700 started off life as an Open Top Luxury Dreadnought numbered as <strong>237<\/strong> (<strong>226<\/strong> to start with). The first of the streamlined double deckers to enter service in February 1934 wartime led to the decision to fully enclose all the open toppers with <strong>237<\/strong> succumbing in the June of 1942. Although the prototype of the class <strong>700<\/strong> (as renumbered in 1968) was just another of the Balloon Cars until it came to its time for a major overhaul. In reverence to its historic nature it was decided to treat it to a more traditional overhaul than the previous tram to go through the workshops \u2013 <strong>723<\/strong> \u2013 which led to several original features including roof windows, central destination indicators (albeit ones with just one destination!) and end double indicators. To top it all off it received a repaint in the always popular Wartime Green and Cream livery. To some it was a surprise when <strong>700<\/strong> was chosen to receive the widened centre entrances to become a member of the B fleet for intended use on the upgraded network, including an eventual repaint into Flexity Purple and White. Despite this work <strong>700<\/strong> has seen very limited use as a B fleet car and is more likely to be seen loaned to the Heritage fleet.<\/p>\n<p>In this photo we see <strong>700<\/strong> some 10 years after overhaul in 2007 at Fisherman\u2019s Walk, Fleetwood terminating before heading back to North Pier.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_28858\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=28858\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-28858\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-28858\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-28858\" title=\"700-bg\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/700-bg-550x368.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"368\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/700-bg-550x368.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/700-bg-1024x685.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/07\/700-bg.jpg 1288w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-28858\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Bryan Grint<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We feature a tram in today\u2019s Blackpool edition of Picture in Time in a much remembered condition \u2013 the wartime Green and Cream liveried Balloon 700.<\/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\/28857"}],"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=28857"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28857\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":28860,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/28857\/revisions\/28860"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=28857"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=28857"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=28857"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}