The sight of Blackpool’s heritage trams on New South Promenade has become an increasingly common one in recent weeks and months, due to the requirement for these trams to be based at Starr Gate depot during the road works at Manchester Square which have rendered the Rigby Road site largely inaccessible to trams. Late last month, most of the fleet were moved back to Rigby Road as it was confidently predicted that this work would be completed before they were needed for service again – a prediction which has, unfortunately, been proved wrong.<\/p>\n
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Therefore on Friday 20th June, five heritage cars were moved back to Starr Gate depot ahead of the Totally Transport event taking place on Sunday 22nd June. The five were: Bolton 66<\/strong>, Pantograph car 167<\/strong>, Open Boat 600<\/strong>, Brush Railcoach 631 <\/strong>and Balloon 717<\/strong>. Originally two other trams, Standard 147 <\/strong>and Boat 230<\/strong>, were scheduled to operate at this event and it is now unclear as to whether they have been dropped from the line-up, or if they will move at the last minute. Presumably cars 631 <\/strong>and 717 <\/strong>have been despatched to the new depot as wet weather substitutes, although with a promising forecast the open cars should be able to run as planned.<\/p>\n The fact that the road works at Manchester Square remain incomplete more than six months after the job was started, and temporary traffic lights which cannot be used by trams remain in situ, quite frankly defies belief and reflects very badly on those who are in charge of highway works in the town. Although the frequent moves of rolling stock between the two depots has added further interest to the heritage tram operations for enthusiasts, it has been an operational nightmare for Blackpool Transport and has added a considerable amount of ‘dead mileage’ to the working days of these trams when in service. Thankfully this should be less of an issue on June 22nd when the heritage cars will actually carry passengers south of Pleasure Beach, but the amount of inconvenience that the delays to what should have been a fairly simple task has certainly complicated the running of the heritage tours every time they have run so far in 2014.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The sight of Blackpool’s heritage trams on New South Promenade has become an increasingly common one in recent weeks and months, due to the requirement for these trams to be based at Starr Gate depot during the road works at … Continue reading