{"id":49837,"date":"2023-06-08T22:00:30","date_gmt":"2023-06-08T21:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=49837"},"modified":"2023-06-08T19:18:20","modified_gmt":"2023-06-08T18:18:20","slug":"four-minus-two-equals-two-as-the-fleetwood-collection-is-reduced","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=49837","title":{"rendered":"Four minus two equals two as the Fleetwood collection is reduced"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust are now just looking to dispose of two remaining trams from their collection at Wyre Dock after Centenary 641<\/strong> and Railcoach 678<\/strong> departed following component recovery. This process has provided valuable parts for other preserved trams and would seem to be the best possible outcome when you consider there was no serious prospect of either tram being preserved in their own right.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The threat to the future of these trams has been hanging over them for some time after it was announced last year that the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust would be disbanding their collection. This came about after it was finally conceded that their plans for a tram museum in the town would not be able to come to fruition and the storage compound at Wyre Dock was earmarked for redevelopment. All of the trams under their auspices were made available for purchase by other organisations\/individuals and this has seen Trailer 687<\/strong> head to Rossall School and Balloon 710<\/strong> back to Rigby Road.<\/p>\n

The latest two to be disposed of are Centenary 641<\/strong> and Railcoach 678<\/strong>. Both have given up parts which will go towards the restoration of other trams and after this 678<\/strong> was scrapped on site with 641<\/strong> departing Wyre Dock. 641<\/strong> will now benefit Jubilee 762<\/strong> with 678<\/strong> giving parts towards Brush 298<\/strong> and in the far future OMO 5<\/strong> \u2013 all three beneficiaries being members of the national collection.<\/p>\n

Of these two trams 641<\/strong> is the one which has been seen the most recently having been located at Pleasure Beach between 2015 and 2019 on a short section of track. Initially in a celebration of Blackpool FC livery it subsequently went purple in 2017 and featured artwork from a local charity who help people to beat addiction. Built in 1984 by East Lancashire Coachbuilders it entered service in the July of that year as the first of a new class of tram and one which would help the tramway to survive to allow an upgrade in the 2010s. It ran for the last time in 2011 but had already been withdrawn before the traditional tramway closed in November. It was soon acquired by the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust and as well as Wyre Dock also spent a period in store at Kirkham Prison.<\/p>\n

As for 678<\/strong>, this tram last ran in 2006. Originally English Electric Railcoach 278<\/strong> (of 1935) it was one of 10 converted for the Twin Car project with it completed in 1961. 678<\/strong> was never to be permanently coupled to its trailer car and would continue to be operational as single railcoach until its final withdrawal came at the end of the 2006 season. It remained stored at Rigby Road for five years before departing in December 2011 and since then has been in open storage (at two locations).<\/p>\n

The end for 641<\/strong> and 678<\/strong> means that the remaining trams at Wyre Dock are Brush 637<\/strong> and Twin Car 673+683<\/strong>. In a statement the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust have said: \u201cThe Trust is seeking alternative homes for these cars so it can close the file on the Fleetwood Museum proposals.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust are now just looking to dispose of two remaining trams from their collection at Wyre Dock after Centenary 641 and Railcoach 678 departed following component recovery. This process has provided valuable parts for other preserved … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[12],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49837"}],"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=49837"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49837\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49870,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49837\/revisions\/49870"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49837"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49837"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49837"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}