14.11.07
Blackpool trams take winter break
he entire Blackpool tramway will close shortly for the winter to allow major trackworks on large parts of the system. RTM spoke to Metro Coastlines’ operations director, Oliver Howarth.
Tell us about the upgrade
We’re in the middle of a 2 year programme at the moment. This is financed with emergency funding from the regional transport funds for the north west of England. There is £10.7m from central government and match funding of £1.1m from Blackpool council. In actual fact we provided that match funding on behalf of Blackpool Council as they are our shareholders.
What has been done so far?
The work which took place last winter replaced nearly two miles of double track from Rigby Road, Manchester Square, down to South Pier, which is approximately 1.5 miles of excellent double track on the sea front. This involved new foundations and a complete relay of the track to get ready for LRT.
Was the first phase completed on time and within budget?
It was, yes.
Did you use the same contractors?
Birse did all the work last winter.
What remains to be done?
This coming winter we’re going to have a number of jobs done by three separate contractors. One is Track Services, which is the track services arm of Blackpool Council. The council own the track and we pay a fee for use of the track, and this has been in operation for over a decade. A lot of the track laying is going to be done by Birse – who also did the track laying last year and have been involved in track upgrades on the tramway for about four years now. The third contractor is Corus.
This winter there is a whole series of things which need to be done. Track Services are going to be responsible for a partial relay of the Starr Gate turning circle. There will be a complete relay of the Pleasure Beach turning circle and loop, which is an intricate job.
On the north end of the track, which was relaid last winter, there’s going to be 100 yards of infill between there and the three year old Manchester Square double junction. A crossover within the 100 yards is going to be taken out and moved north. There’s also going to be a track lay from Manchester Square up to Central Pier. This effectively means that access both from Manchester Square to the depot and our alternative access via Russell will be closed because the whole section’s being relaid. That is the prime driver of the closure of the tram track over the winter.
Further north, we will then have the double track relaid from Gynn Square, up the hill to the Cabin, along the cliffs to Bispham and further north to Norbreck – over two miles of double track. We’re also going to replace the Little Bispham turning loop. In addition, we’re hoping to have two new sub-stations at the top end of the line, and will possibly replace the)traction poles between Thornton Gate and Fleetwood.
So this will all take place between now and Easter next year?
Effectively, yes. One of our problems is that Easter is rather early next year – March 21st.
Do you have plans for development beyond this phase?
At the moment we’re very interested in getting the infrastructure back under control. We’re addressing major arrears in maintenance that have taken place over the years. Our concern is to be able to have track which is ready and waiting for modern LRT vehicles.
Network extensions have been discussed in the past. The possibility of running out via Poulton to Fleetwood, and running out via St Anne’s to Lytham have been discussed. But at the moment they are not on the table for us to talk about. We are really focusing on upgrading the existing tramway before looking at extensions.
What about new vehicles/trams?
What we are hoping for is that when the formal declaration is made that there will be no super casinos in the country, Blackpool will actually receive some funding in compensation. One of the things that we are hopeful of, something which has already been alluded to in Parliament by Gordon Brown, is the possibility of funding for new trams, which has been on the table for quite a while. We are very interested in getting new trams. It’s been over 20 years now since we took a batch of new trams for the tramway – we clearly need an injection of new vehicles. We are very keen to upgrade the service and bring it up to modern standards. We are certainly looking at the possibility of government funding for a fleet of new trams, and we believe that there has been a credible business case made for that. That would be looking at 75% funding from BFT and 12% each from Blackpool Council and Lancashire County Council.
Would Blackpool welcome a consortium submitting a bid to supply the new trams?
We are looking at different ways in which trams could be provided and funded. We are interested in different approaches to that. It’s no secret we’ve been looking ourselves at developing a low floor bogey. There are lots of ways in which we’d like to update and improve the fleet.
One of the issues that we are faced with is that under the Disabilities Discrimination Act we have until the end of 2019 to replace our existing trams unless we were to get dispensation from the secretary of state for transport to run non-wheelchair accessible trams in 2020, but we cannot get that dispensation until 2019, which is no way to run any sort of business.
Will you be looking to pay a premium for a 100% low floor tram or one which is approximately 60-70% low floor, like the ones used in Croydon?
We can’t have high platform trams. With the LRT we will build low platforms and we will substantially re-evaluate the number of stops on the system and expect to reduce the number of stops the trams make.
We are looking at something similar to the Midland Metro trams – we must have low floor accessibility. How it’s delivered and the format in which it’s delivered, whether we’re talking about a small number of 30m double ended cars or a large number of 20m single ended cars, will depend on the quotations we receive. We’re on a tendering process at the moment and ten manufacturers have expressed an initial interest, and we’ve moved to a second stage with eight of those, and we’re currently in the latter stages of visiting all eight of those manufacturers.
Will you be looking to award a maintenance package?
We believe that with several, if not all, of the tram manufacturers, there will be a maintenance package. We have already said that we would be looking at one of those as an option compared to using our own tramway engineering. We have much more in the way of tramway engineering facilities than other tramways.
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