{"id":44258,"date":"2022-03-17T22:00:30","date_gmt":"2022-03-17T22:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=44258"},"modified":"2022-03-17T06:59:56","modified_gmt":"2022-03-17T06:59:56","slug":"trams-start-testing-on-talbot-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=44258","title":{"rendered":"Trams start testing on Talbot Road!"},"content":{"rendered":"

After all the talk of delays (and let\u2019s be honest there have been a lot!) the night of Wednesday 16th<\/sup> March 2022 will go do in the history books as the very first trams ran along the Blackpool Tramway Talbot Road extension all the way up to the former Wilko\u2019s site. This marks the first tentative steps towards public services starting \u2013 although we still wait for confirmation of just when that may be.<\/p>\n

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The historic evening saw Flexity2 trams 012<\/strong> and 017<\/strong> allocated to testing with both being used to complete the initial gauging tests. As we have seen elsewhere in the UK these first tests are crucial to make sure that the infrastructure is all as it should be with the trams running at near walking pace along with an army of staff checking that there were no problems.<\/p>\n

This is only the very start of testing and commissioning of the new line and its unlikely we are suddenly going to see trams along the extension night and day as the officials will now go back and look at the results of the test before further activity takes place. But despite that the historic nature of the evening should not be ignored as it is a big step in the right direction and before too long there will finally be a passenger service to Blackpool North Railway Station! Which after all the travails of the project is something to be celebrated!<\/p>\n

Now let the debate commence about what service they can run on the line, particularly when there remain two Flexity2s out of service long-term.<\/p>\n

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What\u2019s this barriers removed from the entrance to the line in Talbot Square?<\/p><\/div>\n

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Looks like something is about to happen! More barriers being removed!<\/p><\/div>\n

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017 and 012 sit in Talbot Square as testing gets underway.<\/p><\/div>\n

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Another shot the two trams with the Premier Inn building in the background.<\/p><\/div>\n

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With work still ongoing on the old Wilko\u2019s site photography of the terminus remains a challenge but this view across shows the two trams with plenty of officials taking a close look. (All Photographs by Darren Bloxham, 16th March 2022)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After all the talk of delays (and let\u2019s be honest there have been a lot!) the night of Wednesday 16th March 2022 will go do in the history books as the very first trams ran along the Blackpool Tramway Talbot … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":44261,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44258"}],"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=44258"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44258\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":44264,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/44258\/revisions\/44264"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/44261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=44258"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=44258"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=44258"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}