{"id":60325,"date":"2025-10-03T18:00:30","date_gmt":"2025-10-03T17:00:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=60325"},"modified":"2025-10-02T13:42:34","modified_gmt":"2025-10-02T12:42:34","slug":"picture-in-time-blackpool-balloon-701-5","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/?p=60325","title":{"rendered":"Picture in Time: Blackpool Balloon 701"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Another edition of \u201cPicture in Time\u201d coming from Blackpool.<\/p>\n<p><!--more--><\/p>\n<p>Central Promenade is again the location as we see <strong>Balloon 701<\/strong> heading for Manchester Square and presumably back to depot. Its almost reached its terminus as it is already south of Central Pier. There look to be few, if any, passengers on board and it is to be hoped that the four young people on the right are aware of its proximity. Hoardings advertising cigarettes (Silk Cut \u2013 The low tar cigarette) seem very dated nowadays. The St Alma Hotel looks as though the accommodation it provided was at the more basic end of the spectrum, but it was demolished in the 1980s and replaced by an amusement arcade.<\/p>\n<p><strong>701<\/strong> has adverts for CIS Insurance and is fitted with a single destination indicator as well as a trolley pole. It remains in Blackpool to this day and is currently stored in the main depot at Rigby Road Depot having last operated in 2021.<\/p>\n<div id=\"attachment_60326\" style=\"width: 560px\" class=\"wp-caption aligncenter\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/701-db.jpg\"><img aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-60326\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-60326\" src=\"http:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/701-db-550x363.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"363\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/701-db-550x363.jpg 550w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/701-db-768x507.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/701-db.jpg 1285w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/a><p id=\"caption-attachment-60326\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photograph by Donald Brooks, July 1979<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Another edition of \u201cPicture in Time\u201d coming from Blackpool.<\/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\/60325"}],"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=60325"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60325\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":60327,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/60325\/revisions\/60327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=60325"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=60325"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.britishtramsonline.co.uk\/news\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=60325"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}