{"id":59150,"date":"2025-07-11T18:00:31","date_gmt":"2025-07-11T17:00:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=59150"},"modified":"2025-07-06T09:25:54","modified_gmt":"2025-07-06T08:25:54","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-balloon-715-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=59150","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloon 715"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One final trip to Blackpool for this set of images in \u201cPicture in Time\u201d.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>In recent years one of the most popular trams in Blackpool had been <strong>Balloon 715<\/strong>. Now part of the Fylde Transport Trust collection, the fact that in the \u201cheritage era\u201d it was the only operational Balloon Car which had not gone through modernisation meant it had that something extra for the enthusiast. And in this image it doesn\u2019t look too different to how it did last time it ran in 2022 \u2013 right down to the adverts seen here and the pencil thin destination blinds!<\/p>\n<p>There is a very full load of passengers on board <strong>715<\/strong> when we see it at Tower and the tram is going all the way to Fleetwood on what we would guess is a Market Day. <strong>715<\/strong> originally entered service in 1935 (as <strong>252<\/strong>) and although withdrawn in 2009 for the then Lancastrian Transport Trust it didn\u2019t spend too long on the sidelines as it was resurrected and ran before the traditional tramway closed. It then became an important part of the heritage fleet \u2013 on loan from the FTT \u2013 until it had to be withdrawn in 2022 requiring works attention. It remains stored at Rigby Road.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_59151\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/715-cab.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-59151\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-59151\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/715-cab-550x363.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/715-cab-550x363.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/715-cab-768x506.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/715-cab.jpg 1147w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-59151\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Chris Allsop-Buckler, 20th August 1984<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One final trip to Blackpool for this set of images in \u201cPicture in Time\u201d.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7,35],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150"}],"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=59150"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":59152,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/59150\/revisions\/59152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=59150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=59150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=59150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}