Blackpool Transport's 131st Anniversary Weekend Celebrations

As soon as the announcement was made back in July about this weekend's Anniversary Spectacular and the Depot Tours, I was straight on the phone to Emma to reserve my tickets. This was one opportunity that I wasn't going to miss.

The weekend arrived and we went to the Rigby Road Depot entrance just before 10am on Saturday to see the last of the trams departing for service and met up with a friend who was already booked on the 10am tour (ours wasn't until 12 noon).
After their tour had started, we jumped aboard Heritage bus 501 which was running along the old tram routes to Starr Gate, Pleasure Beach and back to Blundell Street. We got off at the Pleasure Beach and then jumped aboard Brush Car 680 which was on a service run to Cabin.

We alighted at North Pier where Balloon 719 (Donna's Dream House) was parked up as the shop car. I went and purchased my Polo Shirt which I had ordered from Gary earlier in the week.

Next up came 718 a modified Balloon car, part of the B fleet which was modifed so it can complement the Flexity Trams, but also still runs as part of the Heritage service too. This was on a service to Little Bispham. We took this car up to Cabin where we changed on to Boat car 600, The Duchess of Cornwall. We took the Duchess back to North Pier.
Balloon 715 was the next car along, which was running on a service to Fleetwood. We knew we wouldn't have time to go all the way to Fleetwood and back before our Depot Tour at 12 noon, so we just rode back to Cabin, where Boat car 227 had just pulled in and was waiting for us.

As we approached the Pleasure Beach, it was 11:45am, we decided to alight here as Heritage Bus 362 was waiting at the bus stop, which we thought would take us back to Blundell Street where we could start the tour at Rigby Road. Although this bus was going back to the depot, it was going on the long route back, so wouldn't get us back until 12:15pm - too late for our depot tour. Ok, time for Plan B....... We looked over our shoulder and a Flexity was heading towards us. We ran up to the Pleasure Beach stop, and just managed to jump on at the back door of tram 014 with seconds to spare. This got us to Manchester Square for 11:56am...... 4 minutes to leg it up to the depot.

11:59am we got to the depot gates and were the last 2 through :-) We had made it, Happy Days!

We were greeted by John Garnham, our tour guide for Rigby Road, who took us through into the depot and gave us a fascinating insight into the workings of a working Heritage depot. You don't really appreciate what goes into keeping this fleet of heritage vehicles on the tracks and the challenges that the mechanics are facing, especially when it comes to fabricating parts which are no longer available in order to repair the fleet. I think John must be related to Jack Harper (Bob Grant) as there is a strong resemblance, lol.
The trams we spotted in the depot were: Coronation Car 304, Bolton 66, Unimog 938, Reel Car 750, Twin Car 675/685, Centenary 642, Box Car 40, Brush Car 632, Brush Car 634, Ballon 713 (B Fleet), Brush Car 631, 681 Half of Twin Car 671/681, Brush Car 259, OMO 8, Jubilee 761, Balloon 709, Balloon 707, Balloon 704, Hovertram 735, Fisherman's Friend Trawler 737, Standard Car 143, Open Balloon 706 Princess Alice.

There were 2 highlights from this tour, firstly seeing the newly delivered Hover Tram back at Blackpool since it's departure to Scotland in 2007 and then to it's new home at the North East Electrical Traction Trust in 2013. The last time the tram ran in Blackpool was during the illuminations back in 2001. It requires some work before it can be put back into service, mainly the rear entrance cannot be used due to safety rules regarding passengers alighting at the rear of a vehicle where they could be in danger should a runwaway tram strike the rear of the vehicle, so doors will have to be made on the side. Hopefully it will be back on the tracks before too long.

The second highlight was to see the newly refurbished Trawler 737 - now proudly boasting over 24,000 LED light bulbs as well as a nice coat of shiny black paint and a new top end. She really looks well, and I personally cannot wait to see her in all her glory when she takes to the track on the 6th October (although she won't be available for the public until the weekend of the 8th/9th).
When our tour ended at 12:55pm were due to be taken to Starr Gate onboard Balloon 700, but due to the trafic fire onboard Twin Car 272/T2 at Gynn Square earlier in the morning, no trams were running. Fortunately we didn't have to wait too long, before we heard the familiar rumble of her coming along Lytham Road before turning the corner onto Hopton Road.
All aboard, we then set off for a 15 minute journey down to Starr Gate depot. Once all the non-tour passengers had alighted, we then entered the depot grounds through the tram wash. Once stopped at front of the depot, we alighted and were greeted by Paul Galley one of the Directors of Blackpool Transport Services Ltd. He led us through the reception area and into the Maintenance area where Flexity 016 was parked up, resting before being taken out to carry the illuminations passengers that evening. We had the opportunity to look closely at a set of bogies which were on display and how the motors, suspension and emergency track brakes work. Something we had noticed during our numerous visits to Blackpool was how noisy the Flexities were on certain sections of the track. We were able to study the bogies, and identify that it is the track brake that "swings in the wind" and on tarmaced areas of the track this noise is amplified, whereas on the open sections of track the noise is absorbed more so it is less noticable.

We also got to see rare glimpses of the "Crab" which can be used to shunt the Flexities about, and the new Multicar M31H vehicle which is can be driven on both road and rails and is used to support the maintenance of the network.
We then passed through the parts store and into the main storage area, 8 roads which can store 2 trams per road. When we arrived only Flexity tram 005 was parked up and it did look a little lonely in all this space. Although it wasn't too long when a rather familiar looking driver turned up to carry out his pre-drive checks before taking the tram out of the depot and into service. The reason why he looked familiar is that he was the driver of the tram that was filmed by Granada nearly running over little Jack in Coronation Street.

At this point, our tour was nearly over, just a little time for some more questions (of which I had lots) before saying our thanks and goodbye's before boarding Balloon 700 at just after 3pm which took us back to the North Pier stop.

From North Pier we then took the Marton 31 to the Pleasure Beach where we then headed to the Velvet Coaster for some much needed R&R (or Burger and Beers to be precise). We were killing a bit of time here, as we wanted to wait for the Illuminated Tram tours which started at 7:30pm. However, we had been given a tip-off my someone onboard one of the trams that it is really busy at 7:30pm and they suggested we arrive at around 6pm. We arrived at 6:15pm and we were 7th in the queue. Only just over an hour to wait, although the tram did arrive at 7:15pm and we were able to board.

We rode in the front car (733) all the way through the illuminations to Little Bispham and then back again to North Pier, where we changed over and sat in the rear car (734). I say "in" but we managed to sit in the exposed part of the car. This took us back to the Pleasure Beach where the queues for the Illuminated Tours were huge. I was glad that we had waited earlier and got on the first tram.
We were all really tired at this point, so jumped onboard a flexity to take us back to our digs for the night, near to the Wilton Parade stop.

Sunday Morning started off with a late morning stroll all the way up to Bispham where we boarded the Twin Car 675/685 which was heading towards Pleasure Beach. We set off in car 675 before changing at Cabin to the rear car 685 where we rode in until the terminus at the Pleasure Beach. At the front of the queue, and just about to set off, was the Illuminated Frigate 736. This was too good an opportunity to miss, so we ran and just managed to get onboard before it set off on it's journey up to Little Bispham.
We alighted at Bispham where we managed to sneak in a little visit to the Bispham Kitchen Chippy (well worth a visit there) before boarding Balloon 723 on it's way up to Fleetwood. We alighted at Fleetwood and had a wander around before having a drink in the Steamer Pub where we met Syd Little from the Little & Large Comedy shows of the 1980s and 90s. We then headed back to the Heritage stop only to find out from Blackpool Transport's Facebook page that no services were running due to an incident at the Pleasure Beach. Oh no, wonder what has happened. However, we didn't have to wait long before we heard the familiar sound of a Flexity coming along North Albert Street before turning onto Bold Street. We were going to ask the driver whether the Heritage fleet was still operating when we heard another familiar rumble of Balloon 711 also coming along North Albert Street.

We boarded 711 on it's journey back to the Pleasure Beach, although we alighted at Bispham before returning to our digs where we packed our bags and left for our journey back to Manchester.

I was able to tick off 10 more trams that I hadn't ridden on before and managed to spot another 15 trams that I hadn't previously seen.

All in all a tramtastic weekend. Happy 131st Tramiversary Blackpool.