Fleetwood Tram Sunday 1992

It's July 1992, it's a Sunday and it's another glorious day for the annual Fleetwood Tram Sunday transport fun-fest.

With such a sunny day I loaded the camera with colour film, not something people would normally have to think about choosing these days I suppose, but... This is a mid to late 1950s Wolseley 15/50 with a contemporary touring caravan. The 15/50 was built from 1956 to 1958 and looked somewhat like the MG Magnette, though the rear panels and boot were different. A heater came as standard fitting - usually an option in cars of this date.

There were other things to look at and listen to than just transport. And before you email me with complaints, this is a Dutch organ so the word carousel is spelt in Dutch and is therefore spelt correctly! Hooghuy is the name of the famous family of organ builders in the Netherlands that go back at least as far as 1754 when Gerrit or Gerardus Hooghuy was born. He moved to Bruges in Belgium in 1806 and advertised his services as an organ builder and repairer.

The Mark-I Ford Cortina was introduced in 1962 as a replacement for the Ford Consul. Indeed, the first models (Mark-1a) were badged as a Consul on the front of the bonnet, then a few tweaks were made and the Mark-1b dropped the Consul name which would only be revived years later for a very limited time as the cheaper version of the first Granada.

An Aveling and Porter traction engine named Patience. It was Thomas Aveling who invented the traction engine in 1859 (and steam rollers in 1867). Following his success he became mayor of Rochester in Kent. Patience was manufactured in 1903 and given the factory number 5293. Her vehicle registration number is MN 9033.

The horse-drawn fire engine of Fulwood, a district of Preston, situated to Preston's north between the town centre and just south of where the M6/M55/A6 junction is currently situated. Water pressure was provided by a steam boiler.

Humber Hawk estate. Humber were a member of the Rootes family of car manufacturers and the first Humber Hawk was launched in 1945 after the end of World War II. Designed in 1938 (pretty much a Hillman 14 with a longer boot and without running boards) the Series 1 Hawk went from Mark-1 to Mark-6. The Mark-6 for the first time included an estate car version. and then in 1960 a new body shape came out as the Series II. There would be a series III, series IV and and IVA before production of the Humber Hawk ceased in 1967. This car was not displaying any information and neither does Google so I presume it is off the road and possibly scrapped. It has not been taxed since 2002.

A Mark-2 Ford Zodiac. Three cars had the body shape from basic model (Ford Consul) through the mid-range Zephyr with the Zodiac being the luxury model. Together they earned the nickname The Three Graces and were the dream car of many a young lad and indeed their fathers! They were built from 1956 to 1962.

Staying with the Fords, here's a Ford Popular 100E. For some reason when the Ford Anglia was upgraded to a new body shape, the old style remained in production but renamed as the Ford Popular. This was the second such model to be continued under the Popular name. As weird as this concept might sound, my Dad bought a brand new one... The Ford Anglia 100E was produced from 1953-1959 and the Ford Popular 100E from 1959-1962. Ironically its replacement was the new 1962 upgrade to the Ford Anglia 105E.

A Reliant Scimitar GTE SE5 from 1968. That a company known for its cheap and sometimes even stretching towards cheerful 3-wheeled cars, the Scimitar was something of an anomaly. They were made with a fibreglass body (as were the 3-wheelers) on a steel box chassis and were ftted with Ford engines from the Zephyr and Zodiac models. This gave them quite a bit of Oomph when the accelerator pedal was pressed and this could top 120 miles per hour.

Other components of the car came from various competitors' models too - a touch of the collect ten different cars and use the bits to make a new one... One model apparently knocked the rear view mirror out of alignment when the sun visor was folded down. But hey - they didn't rust! And they were fairly popular. Princess Anne was given one as a 20th Birthday/Christmas present and liked it enough to own several more. Production ceased in 1986.

The beautiful Vauxhall Cresta PA. Built from 1957 to 1962 this is the second model of the Cresta, which was the luxury version of Vauxhall's series of cars with the basic Wyvern and mid-range Velox models. It was heavily influenced by American cars of the 1950s with it's rear fins, moulded front and rear screen windows and sleek styling, undoubtedly making it one of the better looking cars on British roads at the time. It had a front bench seat and the handbrake was pulled from under the dashboard with a column gear change under the steering wheel to allow three people to ride on the front seat. It had only three forward gears, though an overdrive was optional.

Fleetwood Tram Sundays Index

Fleetwood Tram Sunday 2009

Sunday 19 July 2009. Last Sunday we went up to Fleetwood to have a look at the cars, buses and trams at the annual transport event that is Fleetwood Tram Sunday.

Despite the name, trams take a back seat these days, if you'll forgive the pun! However one of the stars of the show was undoubtedly this - the newly restored Wild West Loco tram with trailer caboose, still in the original ABC Weekend Television livery. It had been a favourite sight during the Illuminations since the 1960s and has been sadly missed since it was withdrawn from service, badly in need of restoration. Now it's back and it looks just wonderful!

It was nice to stand watching the parade at 11:30 and take part in the huge round of applause that was given to the RNLI Lifeboat crew, who were pulling the lifeboat along Lord Street. Fleetwood, as a fishing town, has a deep respect for the sea and has lost too many sons to it over the years.

Congratulations too to the local Chinese community whose 2-man Chinese dragon made a colourful addition to the parade!

There was also a funeral jazz band with a leader inspired by the James Bond film Live and Let Die!

And so to the displays of vehicles. The first was a little unusual - a horse-drawn fire engine from the district of Fulwood in nearby Preston. It had a steam-powered pump and pressure mechanism.

The cab of a Leyland Atlantean double-decker bus. When first introduced in the late 1950s they were quite a novelty with the engine at the rear allowing the driver to occupy the same internal space as passengers. It was quickly realised that this would also allow for one-man-operation and was the start of the end of bus conductors.

The owner saw me taking the picture through the window and invited me onboard to get a better shot. Those tiny gear levers had a very distinctive clicking noise as gears were selected. Atlanteans remained in production from 1958 to 1986. Some would have stayed in operation for many years after that.

A classic Bedford lorry. The model was used for almost every conceivable body type from flatbeds to petrol tankers. I had thought this was the usual lorry that we are used to seeing at Fleetwood but a check back at last year's photos made me realise it was a different firm and registration.

A 1960s Hotchkiss lorry. The F registration denotes August 1967 to July 1968

This undeniable brute of a machine is a 1939 Scammell Pioneer. They were used extensively by the army during World War II, hauling gun and howitzer carriages and pulling tank transporters. Many of them were lost, left behind when the British Expeditionary Force converged on Dunkirk for evacuation. With a top speed of 24 miles per hour, the row of fuel cans suggests that they were a trifle thirsty when in use! Standard equipment included tracks that could be fitted over the two rear axles, turning the vehicle into a half track. They continued to be used by the army until the 1980s.

An old Austin London taxi cab. Taxicabs log up an incredible amount of miles during their working lives, so any that survive have only done so with a lot of love, sweat and maintenance!

Mind you, this particular one had travelled a few thousand miles just to get here!

An Albion Claymore lorry. They were built from 1954 to 1966, the original Abion company having been bought out by Leyland Motors in 1951. Albion had started out in Glasgow making cars from 1900 to 1915. From 1909 they concentrated on commercial vehicles, supplying many 3-ton trucks to the army during World War I, many of the surviving machines being converted to charabancs after the war. Albion also made several models of buses.

At the front is a Raleigh Runabout moped - dubbed by us when my brother, Frank, had one as a Raleigh "Whiz"! I had a go on it once and for several years afterwards sported a nice white scar on the palm of my hand after hitting a half brick that someone had left in the middle of the road...

A 1952 Triumph Renown. Made from 1949 to 1954, they were the last of the large Triumph saloons for a while, their place being taken by the Standard Vanguard as the Standard Motor Company had bought out the Triumph name and decided to use it only on sports cars such as the TR series. These were so successful that the Triumph name was brought back in 1959 for saloon cars with the launch of the Triumph Herald and it was the Standard name that was to die out first.

A Bullnose Morris Oxford. Built from 1913 to 1926 and named for the home city of William Morris, the Bullnose referred to the distinctive domed radiator. It doesn't look much like I would picture a bull's nose, but it had originally been decribed as a Bulletnose and you can see a bullet shape much easier than you can see the snotty bit of a male bovine...

So here are a couple of interiors... This is the 1950s Ford Prefect. The horn is in the centre of the steering wheel and the little white stub on top can be moved sideways either way to turn on the indicators which were ultra modern flashing lights rather than a semaphore arm coming out of the side of the car which had been common up until that time. The pull switch marked S is the starter. The ignition key (in the dashboard rather than the steering column) did not operate the starter motor until later and had only two positions - on and off. In winter it was still common to have a starter handle to manually stick it through the bumper into the engine and hand crank it to turn the engine to help it start.

The door handle is above the window winder - no electrically operated windows in those days - and the door handle is dangerously easy to catch by mistake, but at least the doors open outwards hinged at the front, not like the older stagecoach doors that opened at the front so that if opened by mistake the wind would catch them and depending on how fast you were going would either crease the metal involving costly repair, or snap the hinges so the door fell off altogether leading to a draughty ride and an even more costly repair! Note the separate handle to close the door which is a simple leather fob.

This is the early 1960s Wolseley 16/60 which was the first car certainly that I remember with an indicator stalk coming from the steering column. It had a neat little lamp with a green cover on the end of the stalk too, which flashed with the indicators as a reminder that they were on. The dashboard has a nice bit of (real!) walnut wood and the glove box has room for not only a pair of gloves (you'd be lucky to get those in some modern cars - why would you need shelves in a glove box for Heaven's sake???) but also a bottle of slightly soapy liquid and cloth, which was used frequently to wipe the inside of the windows to demist them. Heaters were not very strong as yet!

My Grandad had swapped his Ford Prefect for a Wolseley 15/50 and that in turn for the 16/60 like this. In fact apart from the engine size the only difference that I could see at my tender years (8 or 9 at the time) was that the 15/50 had been two-tone green and black whilst the later one was all black in colour! Happy memories of "helping" Grandad deliver the groceries from his shop. Before long the supermarkets would start to open and they had a devastating effect on his little shop, spelling also the end of personal service and forcing everyone to pick up and carry their own goods to the till! Now we have to operate the tills ourselves without discount, training or wages. I'm not sure how companies expect people to be able to pay for shopping once no one has a job because of automation...

This line-up of Rover cars from the P4 series brings this entry to an end. A 75, 95 and 110, these models were ridiculed in the early days for their short bonnets and long extended boot at the rear. The design would later become the norm for family saloon cars. They were undoubtedly high quality though, one magazine review considering that only Rolls Royce made finer cars. Whilst different models came and went during the 1949-1964 production run, these were more akin to the Mark-I, Mark-II designations of other manufacturers and the basic body design didn't change much.

Some experiments were undertaken with different power plants. A prototype was produced with a gas turbine engine in an open top P4 tourer body and can still be seen, designated JET 1, at the Science Museum in London.

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