Goodbye to trams
 

Anyone seen the LET today?
Looks like £1million of taxpayers money has gone into paying for 'research' into bringing trams to East Lancashire, but now the plans are scrapped.
I'm all for trams. Preston have talked about bringing them back too, but here apparently the idea has been scrapped because the area has too many hills.
Was this not noticed years ago?
What do people think? Goodbye to a bad idea, or another good plan wrecked by bad planning?

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Makes you wonder doesn’t it. I think their where trams in Accrington from sometime around 1886 until a little after the First World War. Didn’t seem to be a problem then?

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

leaves are much tougher these days and 1 leaf on the track cuold cause mayhem

ask british rail lol

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Remember the last tram from Blackburn centre, watched with my father.
On the tram tracks, I bet if you dig down far enough through all the layers of tarmac the old cobble sets and tram lines will still be there
Also remember getting my bike stuck in the dam tram lines, an finished up going over handlebars, my gran was coming out of a shop at the time, did I get a good B********

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Why?

I would have thought she would have been concerned about your possible injuries - why would you get told off for coming off your bike?

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LET journalists get info from AccyWeb
 

Dave Higgerson [the LET journo on this storty] rang me this morning, 7.45, on my way out to work. Said could he use my comments he had found on AccyWeb last week about the ELP and the trams.

This quote from the site was used. However I didn't say it would be better spent on buses and roads [as quoted], someone else must have said that.

I didn't know last week that BwD and LCC were pulling the plug but it was obvious way back that this scheme was going nowhere fast, as much as I would like to see trams return. They have been pouring public money into a black hole for 4 years on this. Nick Briggs, where are you???!!!

Someone should resign over this. On Thurs and Fri I did some enquiries and it transpires that our man [HBC's] in ELP was Peter Clarke [Conservatove Cabinet Member accompanied by the smiling assasin Nigel Rix]. WORSE STILL! Since when Hyndburn First desolved no-one has been at all apparently.

ELP run the Regional Park [Panopticons] and Rapid Transit initiatives. When I slag off the conservatives for being useless, this is exactly a case a point.
They are supposed to represent the people of Hyndburn. A retired Blackpool donkey would do better.

Why has both the Panopticon and RTS been allowed to drag on into a deep dungus mire at huge public expense and then how hypocritical is it of Obengrupfuhurer Britcliffe to blast off that its everyone else fault. Its his Cabinet member is supposed to be representing us and getting best value.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

It is too hilly for trams eh????? How do they manage in San Francisco? And Graham you got it wrong there......a DEAD Blackpool donkey would do better!

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

I had the same thought about San Francisco. Apparently (according to a friend who has been there) only one tram runs up and down one hill, pulled by a pulley system under the ground! The rest run in a circle around the hills, powered by electricity.
You live and learn on Accy web, don't you!!

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

I remember the trams that ran from Blackburn to Church Commercial. When they got to the Church terminus the driver had to get out to turn the pantograph round and the condutor flipped all the seat-backs the other way. Some of the trams had open top decks. I loved them.

The road in West End was paved with, sort of, flat cobbles and the more house-proud ladies used to polish the bit of tram lines that ran past their houses. These were the same ladies who would scrub drain pipes and gutter covers with black lead. Not my mum, she had better things to do.

Here, we have had proposals to extend the Manchester-Altrincham tramway to Warrington, on the path of the extinct railway. I would welcome it but the idea seems to have died the death, just like yours.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

http://www.tecolinestreetcar.org/home.html
http://www.lightrailnow.org/news/n_tam001.htm
http://www.heritagetrolley.org/existTampaPress4.htm
We are paying for some idiot who thought this was a good idea,they need about 3 times the rider amount then what they get and we are paying taxs on a white elephant. Accy you will do well to stay away from Trams the only people who make money are the expert advisors.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Can you just imagine it? :-

The junction at the bottom of Market Street
A new junction incorporating a tram turntable, traffic lights all on red whilst the tram driver gets out and turns his vehicle round, then goes upstairs to flip over the seats before flipping the downstairs ones (can't afford to employ conductors these days Mrs, one man trams only.) Makes the current junction seem positively efficient doesn't it?

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

From the same article in last nights LET
But today, Coun Andy Kay, in charge of regeneration at Blackburn
They going to widen the roads first :confused:

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Just done a "Google" - bus lanes, throws up some interesting links, note the dates
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/3571820.stm
http://www.abd.org.uk/pr/348.htm
http://icliverpool.icnetwork.co.uk/0...name_page.html
http://www.scotiaweb.co.uk/transport/buslanes.html
Think the best one is Liverpool :eek: mind the bbc one comes a close second :o

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Don't know on that one, but would bus lanes not help to cater for the hundreds of visitors to the accys new attraction, if we get it :rolleyes:
have a look at this one http://speedlimit.dreamwater.org/gallery_buslanes.html

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

It would be great if we had the old trams, or could have them back. Its obvious that S Fran gains tourist dollar through them. By comparison I dont think Blackpool does but that may be because it is altogether a dowdy souless concrete place.

New eco friendly engine types are reducing noxious emissions right down. The best of which is the H2O engines that emit only water and with modern electronic scheduling and infomation as in parts of the continent, there seems little future for expensive rail systems or unworkable guided busways.

What we need is an integrated bus network with investment going into front line provision. Like as mentioned. New eco friendly fleets, a modern exchange and investment in electronic bus schedule information, such as the cheap LED signs at stops, on demand info via mobile phone etc.. Re-regulation would help then the profits on profitable routes can be used to subsidise a proper network instead of tax payers subsidising the loss making routes whilst some private operators dance around the supposed timetable with impudence and with a livery of clapped out third world polluters.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

It all sounds very nice, Graham, but how much is it going to cost? An awful lot of biccys is the answer. The fact is the lhe last tram developments in the UK have been PFI funded and none of them are giving the anticipated returns to the development consortia. (I have used the last one - the Croydon Wimbledon link frequently) Consequently, as far as I am aware there are no plans in the pipeline for any tram development anywhere within the UK

I would have thought that it would have been far more productive to invest & develop our existing assets, such as increasing the utilisation of the East Lancs Line and integrating it with the bus system.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Thinking about it, they wouldn't fit in today would they. I'd like to see Accrington Transport back on the road in their true colours.

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

In reply, have not BwD and LCC just ditched the tram idea after spending £1million on research.

Lets have another look at this one, take accrington for example the town centre and adjacent streets are becoming choked with parked cars, there an't any more space for car parks. So how many major roads are there in to accrington 5 or may be 6. Is there anywhere along these 5 or 6 roads where there is room to fit very large car parks. Now you could have your trams, and a town completely free from traffic, except for early morning deliveries say 7.30am at the latest. ;)

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Your right, Willow. Everything was slower in those days, except me (I think I was about 4 when they got rid of them).

Please, what is the red island on Blackburn Rd in West End? It sounds vaguely exotic. :cool:

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Good grief. When I left the area, I don't think there were more than 20 cars in the whole village. :D

I know when my dad got his first car after the War (about 1951) we were the only ones on the block who had one, and my uncle Bill was the only one on his block, up the road, who did. They both parked off-road, at the back. The trouble is, knowing the area so well, there will be nowhere at the back of the houses to park cars as the back lane is only 1 car wide.

Going off thread a bit, I wonder if it's like where my son lives, on the outskirts of Manchester/Oldham. It's a narrow street lined with victorian terraced houses (lovely area - if you can take the steep hills). Each house's residents have a narrow space in which to park - my son has a van and his wife has a car - so they have to park nose to tail all down the street. His neighbours can get very shirty if a visitor parks in their "spec". I'm a coward - I park round the corner. :(

No room for tram lines in West End now, then?

Re: Goodbye to trams
 

Yes I agree Tealeaf, looking back is great but in reality the cost of a local rail system [trams] is prohibitive. I think the Labour councillor from Blackburn?? who mentioned hills as a problem clearly has no memory of the days when carriages built of far weighter materials than today did just that. PFI will cost the town even more. Cheaper to borrow from the public works loans board or agreed public lenders such as the major banks and take ownership of the development.

And as I said, engine technology is moving to the point of zero pollutants in the H2O engines. Its obvious that here modern public transposrt should be an intergration of an upgraded rail network, the East Lancs Line and possibly a completeion of the line through Todmorden to Manchester [it is missing s few hundered yards of track] faciliting a Blackburn Manchester Tod Blackburn circular.

And to re-regulate buses saving the tax payer the subsidies on teh loss making roots and having a proper lead on investing in eco friendly vehicles. And of course to build up an interchange here in Hyndburn [reusing one of our older buildings and building on our heritage], with a integrated public transport timetable and on demand electronic information at bus stops, ie how many minutes is the next bus away.

I dont think these are major or ridiculously expensive ideas so long as they planned long term.