Third Blackpool 1977 Photo Album 6 - Illuminated Trams

This will be the final instalment from this particular photo album, but fear ye not, good reader, for truly I was a nerd of gargantuan nerdic proportions in the Seventies and already the next album has been selected. More details later!

This final article for Album No.3 deals with some of the illuminated tram fleet. Nostalgically it looks back at those not seen on the Promenade tracks any more. This is the Shell Hovertram which first appeared in 1963. Cutting a fine figure on the Promenade it was a double-decked tram and an instant hit on the Tour of The Illuminations route. Withdrawn along with most of the other illuminated trams by 2001, it is currently being restored in the North East.

The 1959 Blackpool Belle disappeared off the tracks the very next year after this photo was taken in 1977. In 1978 it went to America and never came back. Based on a Mississippi paddle steamer it was not a passenger carrying tram. Instead it would trundle up and down the Promenade playing music very quietly. If you were walking on the Promenade admiring the illuminations and it approached from behind, there was a moment of puzzlement when you turned to your companions saying "Can you hear something?" before it passed and it became obvious where the sound was coming from.

And lastly - yes, a short entry I'm afraid - here is the fabulous Rocket tram, or Tramnik 1, which appeared in 1963 and was the only tram to have a sloping cabin. It was also the only tram to have two redundant waxwork figures from Louis Tussaud's. No less personages than King Peter of Yugoslavia and General Neguib of Egypt sat in the front above the real driver's cab, dressed as astronauts. It was withdrawn in 1999, but has since made an appearance during the illuminations as centre-piece on the Gynn roundabout.

Thus ends my sharing of photos from this photo album. Album No.4 includes some photos from which I still have the negatives so some may have already appeared on this blog. It does include, however, a record of the Jubilee Air Pageant of 1977, held at the airport and also some shots of the Standard tramcar doing service as a works car.

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Blackpool Pleasure Beach's Space Tower

I have blogged about this ride at the Pleasure Beach before, way back in 2008, but I was miserly with the photos then. In those days I only put a single photo on every article so, thanks to a prompt by James who left a comment asking for more photos of the ride, here's an update.

The Space Tower was opened in 1974, a 160 feet high column with a slowly spinning pod that rose to the top, spun round a couple of times and came down again. It gave some fabulous views over the Pleasure Beach itself and from the top on a good day you could see the mountains of the Lake District, the rides on the horizon at Southport's Pleasure Beach and even the Isle of Man. The latter, if I'm honest, called for not a good day but an exceptionally good day!

The pod in which riders sat had a single bench seat in a circle facing out. This was uncushioned plastic and after a bit most visitors stood up to let the pain die down!

I took this shot in black and white with a red filter on the camera to darken the blue sky almost to black. It also had the effect of turning the bright red building (which housed an amusement arcade) to white. Access to the ride was down a glass-enclosed ramp close to Watson Road and the exit from the ride was above this and led into the arcade itself. The rather weird looking structures with the curve at the top in the left foreground carried lights to illuminate the Log Flume at night.

Because the ride started to rotate as soon as it started to rise the tower and continued to rotate in the same direction at the top and on its way back down, by closing down the lens of the camera and keeping the shutter open for the full length of the ride I created this rather ethereal column of light, the spirals being caused by the tiny lights on the pod. In order for the photo not to be washed out and over exposed whilst the ride was at the very top, I simply put my hand over the lens to block all light until just before it started to come back down again.

A sunset shot, enhanced a little if I'm honest by another filter. The little purple and white striped dome on the left was a camera obscura.

A colour attempt at the column of light. Not quite as successful due to a bit of a breeze blowing on that particular night that rocked the tripod that my camera was sitting on. The ride lasted until 1993 when it had to come down to make way for the new roller coaster, the massive Pepsi Max Big One. It was dismantled and taken to the company's pleasure park at Morecambe, then embarrassing its employees by making them dress as cowboys for the wild west-themed Frontierland. Even this didn't save the park from falling into hard times and it closed in the early 2000s, the repainted tower in sponsored colour scheme as the Polo Tower (the tower itself painted to resemble a tube of Polo mints). The Tower was the last bit of Frontierland to be demolished, but inevitably it came down eventually in 2004.

Addendum: That last sentence was a little premature - thanks to a response to my article posted on Facebook by Dave Oldfield, I was prompted to go for another look and there it was, still standing on 30 March 2015. For a look at the remains of the tower on that date see this entry from 31 March 2015.

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1977 Blackpool Photo Album 7 - The Pleasure Beach

We've done it. We've reached the end of our series from the recently unearthed photo album of Blackpool. The photographs were all taken in 1977 and I hope you've enjoyed looking through them with me. Today we'll be taking a stroll through Blackpool's Pleasure Beach. In contrast with the earlier articles in this series, most of the photos this time have already been seen either on this blog or elsewhere in the past. The consolation is that they all show either rides no longer with us, or ones that were under construction in 1977, so there is something in every photo that you can't see today.

The Monorail is only very recently decommissioned as a ride. But never-the-less, it has gone, never to trundle slowly round the concrete pillars holding up the track. Pictured is the futuristic enclosed train that everyone hoped for. Unfortunately the door seals were so good that after a mere five minutes regardless of whether snow was falling, you were sweltering in the heat from exhaled breath and neighbours' body heat! The springs on the doors were really strong too, so holding a door open with your foot to get some much needed fresh air was an exhausting business!

Just in front of the monorail train and on the other side of the track we see the backs of giant animal figures which overlook a row of children's trampolines. Behind them we can just see the black square hole of a bridge over the Pleasure Beach Express. Two of the Pleasure Beach "woodies" roller coasters can be seen in the background. On the left a curve of the Grand National and to the right, the riser of the Roller Coaster.

We've seen the tall thin column of the Space Tower a couple of times already in this series, but here is the gondola that spun round and rose in a spiral up the tower. It remained in Blackpool until 1993 when it had to come down to make way for the Big One, roller coaster. It was moved to Morecambe's Frontierland and renamed the Polo Tower, being repainted in appropriate colours. It has the distinction of being the last bit of Frontierland standing.

In the same area were these rockets. This was an old ride - I have a photo of me and my brother on it that was taken around 1964. Each rocket had a lever control that raised or lowered the rocket as they went round. Riding high was a more comfortable ride as the angle you sat at was either leaning inwards at the top, in which case gravity counteracted the centrifugal force, or leaning outwards at the bottom which added the gravity force to the centrifugal force and your left shoulder took a bit of punishment against the side of the cockpit!

The Log Flume was an immensely popular ride in its time. It was built over the old boating lake in front of the Big Dipper. There were two long downward ramps during the ride which resulted in the fibreglass log carriage splashing down into the chute that carried the water along with the result that riders stood a good chance of coming off the ride considerably soaked. On the lake itself the motor boats had been replaced by the rafts of the Tom Sawyer Ride. This was a slow ride along a series of scenes that would have been better screened off, with just a few tableaux of mannequins and animals that you might see on the Mississippi. I could say it was a bit like the Mississippi stern wheeler ride at Disneyland - but only if you believe that Mr Jinks and Pixie and Dixie were as good as Tom and Jerry...

In 1977 the Pleasure Beach were making a big thing out of their new ride, currently being constructed on the southern half of the park. This was called the Steeplechase and had three parallel tracks running round a twisting layout with occasional rises to go over the "jumps". A horse-glider that reminded onlookers of the Derby Racer roundabout is displayed whilst work is ongoing so that visitors could imagine what it would be like to ride. On the left is the station of the ride being built.

The Virginia Reel was another superb ride that many people thought of as their favourite. It dated from 1922 and in 1977 would have just five more years to stand. Riders sat around the inside of a tub which revolved whilst clattering around a sloping track that zig-zagged back on itself like a piece of corrugated cardboard seen end-on. A great ride for courting couples - as I recall...

Well there you go... We've been through the pages of this photo album in seven instalments. When I picked out this photo album I had a few to choose from. It wasn't even the only one from 1977. It wasn't even the only one with a photo of the Steeplechase under construction... So this series may have come to an end, but there will be another. Not straight away, perhaps, but then... I don't want to get boring, do I?

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Wild West Train Ambushed!

6 May 1982. I saw in the paper a week before that the Common Market Tourism Minister, Georgis Contageorgis was being given a ride in the wild west tram to see Blackpool's sights. It was very rare then for any of the illuminated trams to be seen on the track during daylight and I went down to the North Pier to take a few photos.

I took a shot at the North Pier and then though it may be worth driving past it up the coast to get a few more shots.

On the way up to Bispham Station where it was due to turn round I saw a lot of people at Uncle Tom's Cabin. It turned out to be a demonstration against the continued closure of the cliff lift down to the boating pool.


Some are waving banners written in Greek but the tram does not stop. I get a photo but so does someone with "Press" written all over him. However he now slopes off, no doubt thinking he had done his job. Some of the protestors are quite angry at this point as the tram, whilst not travelling very fast, was obviously not going to stop and they had had to jump out of it's way. I know the tram has to come back down the track again so I wait with the protestors.

I'm in luck, the tram stops and the Minister gets off to talk with them and walks over to look at the lift.

I ring the Gazette and go to see a reporter called Steve Tate and they take and process my film. They phone me up later to say the photos came out well although they are not used. They do give me two fresh rolls of Ilford FP4 film for my trouble.

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