{"id":33688,"date":"2020-05-11T18:00:22","date_gmt":"2020-05-11T17:00:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=33688"},"modified":"2020-05-11T16:23:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-11T15:23:52","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-railcoach-679","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=33688","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Railcoach 679"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today we feature <strong>Blackpool Ex-Towing Railcoach 679<\/strong> \u2013 a tram currently being worked on hard by the Fylde Transport Trust to return to the tracks in its original condition.<\/p>\n<p><!--more-->On 6th July 1975 we see <strong>679<\/strong> about to leave the reserved track just north of the Metropole Hotel as it operates a southbound service to Starr Gate. With route card 13 in the window this would be a timetabled working and it seems to be a popular service with the tram looking pretty full.<\/p>\n<p>By this time <strong>679<\/strong> was very much just a single Railcoach as its former trailer had been withdrawn three years earlier but it still retained the hoses for coupling as seen here. Unlike the first seven conversions the final three (<strong>678<\/strong>&#8211;<strong>680<\/strong>) were never permanently coupled to their respective trailers and remained solo motors all the way until they were withdrawn from service during the first decade of the 21st century. For <strong>679<\/strong> withdrawal came at the end of 2004 but did operate one final tour on a very foggy November day in 2008. The tram is now being restored to its original \u201cpointed\u201d end English Electric Railcoach condition with a return to the rails hoped for in the near future.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_33689\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=33689\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-33689\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-33689\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-33689\" title=\"679-db\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/679-db-550x366.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"366\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/679-db-550x366.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/679-db-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/679-db.jpg 1285w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-33689\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Donald Brooks<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today we feature Blackpool Ex-Towing Railcoach 679 \u2013 a tram currently being worked on hard by the Fylde Transport Trust to return to the tracks in its original condition.<\/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\/33688"}],"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=33688"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33691,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33688\/revisions\/33691"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=33688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=33688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=33688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}