Tuesday 12th August 2014 will go down in history as a milestone date for Blackpool’s traditional tram fleet, as it was on this date that the new organisation set up to look after these trams went ‘live’, with a public announcement confirming that the Blackpool Heritage Trust is now the official custodian of the town’s heritage tram fleet. This includes all of the trams which have been returned to Rigby Road from the Lancastrian Transport Trust collection, the illuminated feature cars, and the\u00a0old favourites which have operated on heritage tours for the last few years.<\/p>\n
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The new trust has been formed primarily to ensure that the heritage trams will remain a part of Blackpool forever, and will not face the risk of being axed in the future with changing management, budget cuts etc. Now, the old trams will be safeguarded by a special charitable trust which is solely devoted to their long-term preservation and operation in their home town. The new Trust aims to work closely with the local Council to ensure that the trams can continue to be enjoyed on Blackpool rails, with Blackpool Transport continuing to act as the operator of these vehicles. Hopefully, in the longer term this will enable the heritage cars to be showcased more often than is the case right now, although for the time being simply to ensure that their future in Blackpool is secure is quite rightly\u00a0the main priority. Charitable status is the next aim, which\u00a0will also give the Blackpool Heritage Trust access to more funding opportunities and the chance to capitalise on gift aid offers with any donations it receives, which could go a long way towards achieving many of the ambitious goals to restore various trams to an operational condition.<\/p>\n
As if this announcement wasn’t exciting enough, it has also been confirmed that the Trust aims to create a new interactive visitor attraction so that the vintage trams in its care can be displayed to the public when they are not in service. The ultimate aim is to have a new museum which will become one of Blackpool’s ‘must-see’ attractions, and bring these trams to a much wider audience, allowing them to be enjoyed by future generations even at times when a heritage service is not operating.<\/p>\n
The new Trust is naturally being led by Blackpool Transport’s own Bryan Lindop who takes on the role of Chairman. The other three Trustees are James Millington, Eric Berry and Paul Wigan, who bring a variety of skills and ideas to the table. This is without doubt a hugely significant day for British tramway preservation, and another leap towards creating a museum fleet integrated with a public transport system to rival what is offered overseas, but had never before been seen here in the UK. British Trams Online <\/em>would like to thank everyone involved for all their hard work behind the scenes to make this development possible, and we look forward to supporting their future efforts and seeing what exciting things they will have in store over the years to come!<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tuesday 12th August 2014 will go down in history as a milestone date for Blackpool’s traditional tram fleet, as it was on this date that the new organisation set up to look after these trams went ‘live’, with a public … Continue reading