New Trams

artist’s impression of the new Blackpool trams:

 

Link to Bombardier page

 

New Depot & New Tramcars

BTS announced that Bombardier Flexity 100% low floor cars have been
chosen for its 16 new cars (due in 2012). Blackpool Council is planning to house the new fleet at a new depot at Starr Gate (replacing the Go-Kart site). There is talk about a “museum” being built right next to it, this could house the remaining (once the new cars have arrived) fleet of “vintage” trams. Funding is only available for the depot, not the museum. If the museum also gets built, this will most certainly mean the end of the present Rigby Road shed.

 

News – 125th Anniversary of Blackpool Trams (in 2010)

The following cars should appear in Blackpool during the big celebrations:

• Stockport 5

• Manchester 765

• Leeds 399

• Southampton 45

• Sheffield 513

• Liverpool 762

• Bolton 66

• Glasgow 22

• Blackpool 167

• Blackpool Marton Vambac 11

• Blackpool Standard 143

• Blackpool Brush 287

• Porto 273

The FTS reports about the planned schedule:

The official events will start on Friday 24th September, when some of the visiting tramcars will be operating on ‘Illuminations Tour’ duties. Saturday 25th will feature not one, but two processions along the promenade. Sunday 26th is the depot open day, which will give people a rare chance to see behind the scenes at Blackpool Transport, and on Wednesday 29th, the actual day of the anniversary, another short procession will lead to an Anniversary Dinner in the evening.

 

all new – two

On February 1st 2008 it was announced that the Blackpool tramway will receive £85 million (with £60 million coming from central government) to upgrade the line to a modern “Stadtbahn” (light rail) type line. Details of the funding for the tramroad upgrade can be found here and here. 

16 low floor trams will be purchased and some of the best of the old cars will be kept.

 

all new – one

Welcome to my new blog. If you are looking for the FTS website (which I used to run for them until the end of 2007) please use this link: www.fyldetramwaysociety.co.uk

Over the next few weeks I’ll transfer most of the interesting pages (fleet lists, history, stories…) from my old site to this new location. In the future this blog will be used mainly to present photos of the Blackpool trams. Why? Well, the Blackpool tramway will be modernised and become a light rail system over the next few years and the tramway we have known for all these years will be gone forever. Instead of lovely 1930s trams in various guises (double deck or single deck) it will become just like any of the other modern tramway (light rail) systems in this world: uniform articulated low floor cars with plenty of standing room. No more wooden interiors or comfortable upholstered swing-over seats, no more climbing upstairs and waiting for the conductor to open the door for you.OK, we should really rather wait and see what is going to happen, specially as a few of the old warhorses are supposed to be kept. Yes, I do find modern trams boring, sorry! But we will use this site to keep the memories of the old Blackpool tramway alive. Your webmaster has thousands of slides in his collection and we will try to show you as many of them here as possible.  And we will of course also record the future tramroad.As a first step we are importing most of the content from the old FTS website. Please note that some articles and most of the fleet lists have not been updated for a number of months. All the content will be brought up-to-date during 2008!

 

1950s BCT Transport Guide Cover – Download

click here to download a zipped TIF-file showing the front & back of a 1950s BCT transport map (one day we may scan the map as well…)

 

1950 Lytham St. Annes Timetable – Download

We have scanned a 1950 LSA timetable and made a pdf file out of it.

• click here to download the file

 

1934 Dick Kerr Sales Leaflet – Download

We offer you two zipped TIF-files that contain reduced scans (slightly restored) of an original sales brochure/leaflet advertising the new EE luxury tramcars. The original is folded twice.

• click here to download the file containing the inside pages
• click here to download the file containing the outside pages

 

1950s Advertising Portfolio – Download

Here you can download a zipped TIF-file of a montage showing 5 (2 tram/3 bus) black and white photos that have hand painted added-in colour advertising panels (stuck onto the original photos) to show potential customers where adverts could be placed on the BCT buses and trams. This is what one today would probably call a portfolio. 

 

• click here to download the file

 

Tram Liveries

Advertising is a prominent feature of the Blackpool trams. Tramcars with all over advertising were introduced in 1975. Most of those liveries are quite nice to look at and they do generate additional income for the company. More recent contracts use so-called “contra vision” adhesive film that covers everything including the passenger windows (there are small holes in the film that allow a restricted view out when you sit by the window). We usually list the dates of the contract/operating season (this means some cars may run around in the “expired” livery for some more weeks/months awaiting a repaint).

Select a page below to see the various liveries carried by the trams:

• Fleet Liveries
• Advertising Trams – Balloon Cars
• Advertising Trams – Centenary Cars
• Advertising Trams – Railcoaches
• Advertising Trams – all other cars