BACK IN TIME - 4 NORTH STATION

By way of contrast to the previous Blog one of Blackpool Corporation's unique and very distinctive buses on its way to Cherry Tree Gardens passes Queen Street from the stop outside the Odeon Cinema. It is the late 1950s and Burlingham built number 260 is advertising Ilford Film on its side panels. The trolley gantry and end of a North Station tram can be detected in the distance behind the oncoming van.

Fashions of the time involved handbags, voluminous skirts and print frocks (for the ladies) and casual jackets for men.

Tobacco companies vie for business at the two competing shops facing each other across Dickson Road. Woodbines, Players Navy Cut, Capstan, being the more prominent brands of the time. The wooden sett paved forecourt to North Station entrance is immediately in front of the photographer with the hackney stand behind under the ornate metal and glazed awning which was a feature of the station building.

A railway sign pointing towards the Excursion Platforms 7 to 16 is visible over the group crossing the road. These now form Blackpool's main station terminal building set back from Dickson Road and away from the original train station.

Number 260 was built in 1951 - one of a fleet of similar buses (201 - 300) on Leyland chassis and bodied by HV Burlingham at their large Preston New Road plant. No other operator in Britain had buses to this design, with the exception of Sunderland Corporation which chanced their arm at a handful of centre entrance streamline buses in the 1930. They were far less elegant than the Blackpool product. A classic view from a long gone era. Photo : John Woodman Archive.