{"id":47297,"date":"2022-12-01T08:43:14","date_gmt":"2022-12-01T08:43:14","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=47297"},"modified":"2022-12-03T09:16:22","modified_gmt":"2022-12-03T09:16:22","slug":"happy-birthday-to-us-british-trams-online-is-20-today","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=47297","title":{"rendered":"Happy Birthday to us! British Trams Online is 20 today!"},"content":{"rendered":"

Now this is a day I wouldn\u2019t have predicted on 1st<\/sup> December 2002 \u2013 today is the 20th<\/sup> anniversary of British Trams Online<\/em>! That\u2019s right British Trams Online<\/em> has been taking bandwidth on the internet for a full two decades. From the very first article written (a cheery headline for that first story \u201cGreat Grandmother killed by tram in Croydon\u201d\u2026) we have sought to bring news, photos and fleet lists from tramways across the British Isles and we have no plans to go anywhere just yet! Read on for some memories from the one who has been there from the start \u2013 me!<\/p>\n

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A question I\u2019ve been asked in the past is why did I create British Trams Online<\/em>? It would be fair to say why is a question I\u2019ve asked myself a lot \u2013 particularly when I\u2019ve been working hard on getting an update ready and would rather be watching something on television! I decided to set it up as I saw a bit of a gap for a website which would cover all British tramways and having been out of university for over a year decided I needed something to keep me occupied. And so British Trams Online<\/em> was born!<\/p>\n

But the website you read today in comparison with the website it was then is a very different beast! Back in 2002 it used to take a couple of hours a week to complete the update \u2013 and now in 2022 it can often be at least two hours an evening in the week and depending on other commitments maybe another seven hours at the weekend. But if I didn\u2019t still enjoy it (most of the time!) I wouldn\u2019t be continuing to update it so those hours are just something which needs to be done to bring you the latest tram and light rail news and photos.<\/p>\n

There have been several \u201cmilestone\u201d moments for the website. Firstly, when we moved from free webspace to the britishtramsonline.co.uk address and paid for hosting. Then we had the introduction of this blog which enables the website to be updated from anywhere with internet access and also allows us to schedule articles to be published which means I don\u2019t constantly have to be there clicking publish \u2013 and also means that although we have updates most days throughout the year I\u2019m not actually there online doing it!<\/p>\n

There have also been challenges. I definitely don\u2019t forget the time when I forgot to renew the hosting and the whole website was lost (hopefully a mistake I won\u2019t be making again as rebuilding the website now would be a mammoth task!) and there have been many other technical issues over the years (including a hosting upgrade which seemed to be anything but when the website didn\u2019t return for several days!). in fact technical issues have often been the worst part of it \u2013 especially when I have no idea what\u2019s going on and the hosting help don\u2019t help a great deal!<\/p>\n

Away from the actual website and in previous significant anniversaries we have sponsored two heritage tram projects \u2013 and it would be fair to say neither of them went according to plan! For our tenth anniversary we sponsored the repaint of Blackpool Boat 233<\/strong> when it was loaned from the Lancastrian Transport Trust to Beamish. The repaint ended up with a minty green cream colour and then the tram\u2019s loan was cut short with it moving to San Francisco. Then for the 15th<\/sup> anniversary we sponsored the loan of Birkenhead 20<\/strong> to Blackpool \u2013 and the tram barely ran during its time there but we did get a hire of it just before departure. It was just a shame I didn\u2019t get to ride on it having sponsored it! After those challenging sponsorships we aren\u2019t currently planning another one although if anyone has any project (cheap one!) they think we could support please do let me know and we\u2019ll see if it\u2019s a possibility.<\/p>\n

Of course, British Trams Online<\/em> is nothing without you \u2013 whether you\u2019re reading the website or have contributed in any way a big thank you! I\u2019d particularly like to mention Andrew Waddington for all his help when he was the only other \u201cmember of staff\u201d as our \u201cSenior Contributing Writer\u201d which came at a time when there seemed to be a lot going on with heritage trams across the country \u2013 and also coincided with the initial introduction of this blog for the news. But it\u2019s a big thanks to everyone else who has contributed (I won\u2019t try to name you all as I\u2019m bound to forget someone!), without those contributions British Trams Online<\/em> would not be the website it is today as I can\u2019t be everywhere and at times I can\u2019t be anywhere as sadly real life work gets in the way a lot (especially this year where its often amazed me that I\u2019ve managed to do any updates at all!). And if you just read what we bring you \u2013 thanks to you as well, there\u2019s little point in doing the website without you!<\/p>\n

I won\u2019t go into too much detail about the most significant news stories we\u2019ve seen in the past 20 years but it would be fair to say a lot has changed in those two decades! Some of it for the better and maybe some of it not so much. I\u2019ll always try and look at the positives in most stories (maybe its what comes of being a long suffering Aldershot fan \u2013 you take any crumb of comfort you can!) as after all its just a hobby.<\/p>\n

As in recent years we\u2019ll be treating December as a celebratory month with three new photo series featuring. The first is a returning series as we again look at trams \u201c15 Years Apart\u201d whilst two new series will look at \u201cThe Number 20\u201d (trams related to the number 20 \u2013 and there aren\u2019t many just numbered 20 which still exist!) and feature many of the \u201cCrich Line-ups\u201d which we\u2019ve seen in recent years during special events.<\/p>\n

Happy Birthday to us!<\/p>\n

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The photo to accompany this article is purely selfish \u2013 as it\u2019s the only tram which has operated in the past 20 years from my home county! Its Southampton 45 at Crich at the Entrance on 13th September 2014. (Photograph by Gareth Prior)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Now this is a day I wouldn\u2019t have predicted on 1st December 2002 \u2013 today is the 20th anniversary of British Trams Online! That\u2019s right British Trams Online has been taking bandwidth on the internet for a full two decades. … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":47298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[22],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47297"}],"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=47297"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47297\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47299,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47297\/revisions\/47299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}