{"id":31829,"date":"2019-12-31T10:00:18","date_gmt":"2019-12-31T10:00:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=31829"},"modified":"2019-12-20T21:48:43","modified_gmt":"2019-12-20T21:48:43","slug":"15-years-apart-blackpool-balloon-711","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=31829","title":{"rendered":"15 Years Apart: Blackpool Balloon 711"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>In the penultimate edition of \u201c15 Years Apart\u201d we are once more in Blackpool as we take a look at yet another Balloon Car \u2013 this instalment shows <strong>711<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->As we have throughout this series we start off in 2004 and show <strong>711<\/strong> at Pleasure Beach on 5th September 2004. This tram was one of the Balloon Cars to have enjoyed a full overhaul in the 1990s which featured many more modern features whilst still retaining the essence of a Balloon Car and by 2004 was still in the 1990s style of green and cream livery with side adverts for The Salvation Army carried during 2004. It is off to Starr Gate.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=31830\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-31830\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\"aligncenter size-medium wp-image-31830\" title=\"1.711-gp\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/1.711-gp-550x383.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"383\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/1.711-gp-550x383.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/1.711-gp-1024x713.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/1.711-gp.jpg 1130w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>In 2019 and <strong>711<\/strong> is a member of the \u201cB fleet\u201d of Balloon Cars which received widened centre entrances for planned use on the upgraded tramway. Although for most of these trams their only use is on heritage tours for <strong>711<\/strong> it is a very different case as it was the sole \u201cB fleet\u201d car to be used for this role in 2019. Being used most Mondays to Thursdays during the illuminations it ran specials along the Prom as an experiment to see whether a more regular use could be found for them. The tram is at Pleasure Beach on 26th September at the LRT platform heading for Little Bispham with top deck closed.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_31831\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=31831\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-31831\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-31831\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-31831\" title=\"2.711-gp\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2.711-gp-550x366.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2.711-gp-550x366.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2.711-gp-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/12\/2.711-gp.jpg 1296w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-31831\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Both Photographs by Gareth Prior<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In the penultimate edition of \u201c15 Years Apart\u201d we are once more in Blackpool as we take a look at yet another Balloon Car \u2013 this instalment shows 711.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[77,7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31829"}],"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=31829"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31829\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":31833,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31829\/revisions\/31833"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=31829"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=31829"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=31829"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}