Recent content by AngelicUpstart

I can't remember exactly, as we're talking about 17-18 years ago, but it was a total non-starter. I think they were talking £15-20m extra, and there was no extra money, so it would have had to have been saved from the rest of the project. The main killer was the TWAO, which would have taken a...

Knowing someone who was involved in the hunt for a site, I can take you through the process as he explained it to me. The first choice was the old Blundell Street depot, rebuilt. That wasn't big enough. The second choice was to repurpose the existing Rigby Road bus/tram depot site, which was far...

The council has already won a legal case against Volkerfitzpatrick Limited for £1.1m against repairs to the depot. As I've said before, initial plans for electronic displays and ticket machines on platforms were dropped when nobody put in a serious bid. My local tram stop is already on its third...

It's even worse than that. A temporary speed limit has been placed on all operational trams, resulting in a longer journey time from this weekend. There are a lot of problems with the fleet, which it seems aren't up to being battered by the Irish Sea's gales for 10 months of the year.

The barriers are basically out of use at the moment. The entire barrier line is due to be redesigned and replaced over the next few months. They sometimes use them at quiet times, but, put simply, they can't manage a busy inbound train and cause long delays. That is also one of the main reasons...

Blackpool Transport can and do track the trams themselves, this is a different system to the live tracking the app uses which as others have said is based on ticket machines. They paid to have an interface developed, but it didn't work reliably. Live departure displays on tram stops were...

You're testing my memory there, but I seem to remember that they did Talbot Road in two bits, split outside Sacred Heart so that they always had access via one access gate or another. 1713961035 Wednesday 12th June has been announced as opening day.

Yes, there are two lay-bys just for this, and weddings, etc. https://www.google.com/maps/@53.8192702,-3.0539052,3a,75y,24.76h,76.33t/data=!3m6!1e1!3m4!1sXHlCC8d1joikF3jZmrav5w!2e0!7i16384!8i8192?entry=ttu

More signs of slow but steady progress yesterday as a PW team were cleaning all the compacted sand and grot from the unused bits of Talbot Road points and trackwork at North Pier and in Talbot Square. Probably not going to run a tram up this week is the latest story but "before the end of...

The platform at North Station Tram Stop has been rewired. I've heard rumours of something going up next week, probably overnight, but there are still a few bits and bobs that need to be finished first. But we're pretty close at last....

Still pencilled in, very lightly I suspect, for Easter. There has been quite a lot of work on the site, you need to remember that the tram extension is only part of what's happening. For instance, all the hoardings that have been up for most of the redevelopment have gone and been replaced by...

The official line is still "By Easter 2024". The Holiday Inn site is looking less like a building site every day, although it is still a building site. The platforms were de-wired some time ago to make the building work easier, they still need rewiring. The subway is still a work in progress...

I'm not sure how much this moves the opening on, but the cladding work on the missing bit is now mostly done, some ground floor stuff needs doing and there is an odd small bit missing here and there, and the tower crane is being removed from site yesterday and today. That's got to be positive...

Going by the hotel this morning, there is definitely work going on on the cladding. Whether they are taking off existing cladding or installing new I'm not 100% sure but there looks to be some new cladding up on the hotel ground floor (rather than the, I guess, basement level where the subway is).

The word on the street is September at the earliest, possibly even early 2024. No work has been done on the cladding. The hotel or the subway underneath it can't be finished until that's done. The tram platform and hence the tramway can't open without either being finished. As to add-on...