{"id":48326,"date":"2023-02-09T22:00:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T22:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=48326"},"modified":"2023-02-09T18:56:21","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T18:56:21","slug":"balloon-710-returns-to-rigby-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=48326","title":{"rendered":"Balloon 710 returns to Rigby Road"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Possibly the most famous Blackpool tram to the general public, <strong>Balloon 710<\/strong>, has returned to Rigby Road Depot where it will become an exhibit at the Tramtown visitor attraction. The tram made the short move from outside storage at Wyre Dock on Wednesday 8<sup>th<\/sup> February 2023.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As we\u2019ve reported extensively on these pages, <strong>710<\/strong> is widely known in non-enthusiast circles as the \u201cAlan Bradley Tram\u201d having been involved in one of the most iconic scenes on ITV\u2019s soap opera Coronation Street. In a episode originally broadcast in December 1989, the tram was seen to knock over the dastardly Alan Bradley as he chased Rita Fairclough across the tram tracks on North Promenade. Obviously. it was all make believe but despite that <strong>710<\/strong> became well known as the tram which killed Alan Bradley and has remained so despite the fact it is over 33 years ago!<\/p>\n<p>Last running in 2007, <strong>710<\/strong> was acquired by the then Friends of Fleetwood Trams as part of their ambitious plans for a tourist attraction in the town. Originally stored in a yard on the outskirts of Fleetwood it was moved to Wyre Dock on 3<sup>rd<\/sup> July 2013 and it has remained in that outside storage ever since. With the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust\u2019s plans formally abandoned last year all of their trams were put up for sale which led to a lot of speculation about what would happen to the \u201ciconic\u201d <strong>710<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>Plans for it to go to Rossall School and then Sandtoft fell through and it seemed that this would be the end of the tram. Until Tramtown came to the rescue and agreed to transfer the tram back to Rigby Road where it would become a static exhibit (at least for the foreseeable future). It is planned to cosmetically restore the tram back to its late 1980s condition with this work due to be completed by Tramtown volunteers and not take up valuable workshop space from any operational trams.<\/p>\n<p>The move of <strong>710<\/strong> \u2013 which retains a very faded Metro Coastlines Magenta and Yellow livery \u2013 took place with little hitch on Wednesday 8<sup>th<\/sup> February with it being manoeuvred from Blundell Street into the depot by Unimog 939.<\/p>\n<p>Tramtown plan an official unveiling in the future but for now the tram is back under cover for the first time since leaving Rigby Road in 2011.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Possibly the most famous Blackpool tram to the general public, Balloon 710, has returned to Rigby Road Depot where it will become an exhibit at the Tramtown visitor attraction. The tram made the short move from outside storage at Wyre &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=48326\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48326"}],"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=48326"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48327,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48326\/revisions\/48327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=48326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=48326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=48326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}