Another 2018 Calendar and Fleetwood
The Trust is engaged in conceptual proposals for the redevelopment of Wyre Dock, Fleetwood. As most readers know from interminable references on this website, the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust's truly modest collection of traditional Blackpool tramcars; all of which formerly ran to Fleetwood will become an especial feature of the scheme under consideration by Associated British Ports (Owner of Wyre Dock) alongside a growing number of interested companies.
The scope of proposals for regenerating Wyre Dock will be presented at a private briefing on November 15th. Hosted at Rossall School to an invited audience, the briefing will lay out a vision aimed at placing Fleetwood once more in the limelight as a leisure destination for visitors to the northwest. Understandably trams will be an inherent component of this groundbreaking waterfront development - emulating on a smaller scale San Francisco's famous 'Fishermans Wharf'.
As part of the programme at Rossall School, invited guests will receive a souvenir calendar specially designed to highlight Fleetwood's long (since 1898) engagement with the electric tramcar. A number of copies are being made available through this website shop following November 15th.
The constant ties between Fleetwood and Blackpool were inaugurated in 1898 by the privately financed Blackpool & Fleetwood Tramroad Company, whose 41 trams traversed eight miles of tramroad, mostly on reserved tracks, between the commercial centre of Fleetwood and the extremely busy railway terminal at Talbot Road, as it was originally known. It is somewhat ironic that this umbilical chord, cut prematurely in 1963 with the run of the very last tram to Fleetwood from North Station, is now being reworked through a new tramway from Talbot Square to what is now 'Blackpool North' - to be opened in 2019 and groundwork commencing this week. The very last service car to operate from North Station to Fleetwood in 1963 (290) is in possession of the Fleetwood Heritage Leisure Trust, who intend for it to come back to life as part of the visitor tramway feature in a wholly revitalised Wyre Dock, along with several other trams which were once a familiar sight bringing visitors to this part of the Fylde coast.
What goes around comes around - if you are patient enough.
