details received from LTT:
LTT are holding two open days this year, Sunday 30 Mar and Sunday 26
Oct - the Oct event should feature a display on the Promenade as per
last year but hopefully with more vehicles. The fourth
totallyTransport event takes place on Sunday 22 June.
On 30 March our depot (Brinwell Road, Marton) will be open from 1200-
1600 with a free bus service to/from Blackpool Town Hall (Market St)
every 30 mins. At the depot itself progress on the restoration of
Standard 143 will be visible and you should be able to see OMO 8 and
Coronation 663 too. Bus wise the situation is somewhat fluid
presently as we are in the process of relocating our commercial
Busworks business from our depot to its own premises and can
therefore bring some vehicles back from our secondary storage depot
to fill the vacated spaces. We just haven’t decided which ones yet!
Our trade stall and that of the Ribble Enthusiast Club will be open
for business.
June 29, 2008 at 3:59 am
Dear Sir/Madam,
I am a Building Designer from Darwin in the Northern Territory in Australia.
I worked as a designer for a Company called Beresford Sherman from 1988-1991 in Vauxhall in London. Beresford Sherman were contracted by the First Leisure group, to reimage North Pier, as part of its reconstruction from the devastating storms of 1987? The re construction of the Pier structure was done by a separate local Blackpool Engineering firm(I met the wife of the owner of the Company at a Rotary meeting by chance, in Darwin last year would you believe!) Most of the building infrastructure was done by Design Aluminium from Bristol, from designs prepared by Beresford Sherman.
The designers who worked on the project were Nigel Cladingboel, John Kirkup, myself Chris Renehan and Charlie ?
During the design of the project, the chance came to design the image of the people mover (Blackpool North Pier Tramway) , and I jumped at the chance, as I was the only person in the firm who had any mechanical inclination or understanding of transportation systems, and I also grew up in Melbourne Australia which has an extensive tram system.
So it was I, who designed the ‘ People Mover ‘ or tramway on North Pier. It is obviously based on a ‘ Blackpool Standard tram’ of the post 1931 vestibule type. I actually bought a standard model kit from Tower models? built it as a single deck, mounted it on a model of a section of pier, and it was presented to the board of first leisure for approval. The colours came from the standard catalogue of dies that you could use in the construction of GRP bodies. Harry Steer and Co. did the construction and drive systems. The lettering on the side was obviously taken from the ‘ carnival style’ font that we had devised for use all over the pier. While it was based on a real tram using a local vernacular, it is a fairground type ride, and as such, has an oversize headlight, and childlike proportions.
Unfortunately, I had to leave to go back to Australia, and never rode on the tram until I came back over for a wedding in 1996. I was thrilled. I am now going out with an Englishwoman who would like to go home for a visit soon, so I will take her up to Blackpool to revisit the people mover.
The only thing that has changed from the original design, is the safety guards(or pedestrian catchers) below the body were yellow.
As far as cover from inclement weather goes, I designed the station canopy at the sea end with cover, but I cant remember doing a cover for the land end.
I have seen several publications which only nominate Harry Steer as having anything to do with the People mover. While Steers contribution could be rightly termed ‘ significant ‘ compared to Beresford Shermans, and Beresford Shermans as an entity no longer exist, if you want to know why it looks like it does well now you have your answer.
I have a further affinity with Blackpool in that when times were tough, I worked as a floor walker in the Merry -Go- Round arcade in Wintergardens for about three months in 1990.
If there is somewhere to post this on a relevant website , then go ahead. If you get back to me and you are interested, I am sure I have a photo of the original model and the original design drawings, in colour. which I will scan and send to you.
Chris Renehan Darwin, Australia