{"id":49809,"date":"2023-06-04T14:00:44","date_gmt":"2023-06-04T13:00:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=49809"},"modified":"2023-06-04T09:29:52","modified_gmt":"2023-06-04T08:29:52","slug":"crane-dismantled-at-old-wilkos-site-in-blackpool","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=49809","title":{"rendered":"Crane dismantled at old Wilko\u2019s site in Blackpool\u2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>At the start of this year we ran an article on the \u201crace\u201d to extensions opening in Blackpool, Edinburgh and on the West Midlands Metro. Over recent months we\u2019ve had regular updates from Edinburgh (opening 7<sup>th<\/sup> June) and the West Midland Metro (work taking place ahead of opening) but what of Blackpool? It has been very quiet, but the start of June has seen a crumb (and just a crumb!) of potential good news\u2026<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>As you will no doubt be aware the opening of the Blackpool Tramway extension to Blackpool North Railway Station is caught up with the completion of the hotel (a Holiday Inn) and restaurant with it not possible for trams to start running until this is finished. This work seems to have been delayed on more than one occasion which means the testing we saw on the tramway last year (let\u2019s remember it was March 2022 that the first trams moved on the extension and June\/July that there was daytime testing) has been to little benefit.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve seen many opening dates come and go and aside from a vague summer 2023 (or September which most of it is in astronomical summer we guess) there hasn\u2019t really been an official word from the Council for when it will start running. Presumably before it does more testing will be needed as well.<\/p>\n<p>The little crumb of good news we teased above is that a big yellow crane which had been used on the construction of the Holiday Inn has recently been dismantled. And that\u2019s as big as the news gets at the moment! It is hopefully progress but it still looks like we have a long way to go and Blackpool is very much going to come third in our race between the three!<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_49811\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?attachment_id=49811\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-49811\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-49811\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-49811\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd-550x550.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"550\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd-550x550.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd-1022x1024.jpg 1022w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd-768x769.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/06\/crane-pd.jpg 1274w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-49811\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">The dismantled crane at the old Wilko\u2019s site, soon to be home to a tramway and hotel. (Photograph by Peter Dockerty, 1st June 2023)<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>At the start of this year we ran an article on the \u201crace\u201d to extensions opening in Blackpool, Edinburgh and on the West Midlands Metro. Over recent months we\u2019ve had regular updates from Edinburgh (opening 7th June) and the West &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=49809\">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],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49809"}],"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=49809"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49809\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49812,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49809\/revisions\/49812"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49809"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49809"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49809"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}