The Erecting Shop is in full scale gallopers overhaul mode with rapid progress being made on the reconstruction and repaint of the deck and steps – the early March deadline looking very close now!  Hopefully the work is comprehensive enough to ensure that, with routine maintenance, this area of the ride will be durable and last for many years to come.

Below: New steps are being constructed…

Below: … while other steps are dismantled.

Below: Steps galore!  Those already overhauled or just needing cosmetic work have already been primed and are currently being repainted.

Below: The deck boards are being cleaned and tidied up or repainted as required.  The bases are being sealed and painted with black bitumen as the underside can become very damp and has, to date, been untreated.

Below: The roofing over of the previously incomplete storage shed is now underway and will allow numerous items currently stored in the tram shed and existing workshops to be relocated and allow us a little more space to lay out projects and store some of the vehicles.

I have also had a number of queries regarding the tramway (prompted, I suspect, by a number of discussions online!).  Pockerley Bank, the tramway climb from the Pockerley tramstop to the Entrance is 1:16 – a gradient fixed as being the steepest HMRI would permit the use of when the tramway was being designed over this stretch.  It must be one of the steepest gradients, if not the steepest, used by heritage trams.  This leads to the next point regarding Blackpool Twin Set trams – there are no plans to use such here, I doubt they would handle the gradient and would operationally be awkward in terms of passing loop lengths!

I am still working on the exhibit list for the GNFoT and hope to announce further exhibit confirmations soon…