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The Blackpool Tram Story 1885-1930
The first electric tram to travel down an English street made it's way down Princess Street, Blackpool on 2 July 1885. There is still a servicable tramline down Princess Street today, but it is not used; being only an emergency route from the depot.

The Blackpool tramway was officially opened on 29 September 1885 with a fleet of ten trams, one of which, at the time of the opening, was giving demonstrations at an exhibition at the Science Museum in London. This car, the first to run in London, made history again once in Blackpool by being the first tramcar involved in a fatal accident when a visitor stepped in front of it in 1887.
The trams picked up the current from a slot between the rails and there were frequent breakdowns caused by the sea water washing over the Promenade at high tides and by blown sand from the beach.

In spite of much argument about the aesthetics and dangers of overhead lines (one critic thought people might touch the wires with their umbrellas), the service was finally converted from the conduit system in 1899.
One of the original trams still survives. Car number 3 was converted into a works car and was given a snow plough and was thus saved from the scrapyard. It can be seen now at the National Tramway Museum at Crich in Derbyshire, restored to it's former glory. It travelled up and down the Promenade once more for the 1985 tramway centenary celebrations, though it had been re-numbered as No. 4.

In 1901 a new route was opened around the back of the town, away from the Promenade. At this time Blackpool was very undeveloped away from the seafront and the tracks were laid over open fields, the intention being that farm produce could be brought into town by tram. Later, what is now Central Drive was laid around the tracks.
At the beginning the route suffered a series of setbacks. A new type of rail was laid with a wider groove that, it was thought, would give a smoother ride. Too late the Tramways Committee found that the Board of Trade had banned the use of the rails because bicycle wheels dropped into the grooves.

The Mayor headed a deputation to London and special permission was granted to use the rails, much to the dismay of local cyclists who left two cycles wedged into the rails on the day the route was opened.
The track had also been laid to the wrong guage and caused a succession of broken axles. On top of these problems came the discovery that the curves into the new local tram depot were too tight for the trams to negotiate and it was several months and an expensive re-lay before the shed could be used.

Despite being used for "circular tours" from 1911, it was not until the 1920s that the route began to show a profit.
By 1902 Blackpool's Promenade was no longer wide enough for the numbers of visitors using it. At high tides people were forced off the beach and swarmed onto the Promenade in such numbers that they were often crowded onto the roadway. In March 1902 work began to widen the Promenade, reclaiming land from the sea.
The last section was opened in 1905 giving Blackpool the largest promenade in Britain. The new Promenade gave the trams a "road" of their own, running alongside the roadway used by other vehicles and this, probably more than anything else, has saved Blackpool's trams from sharing the fate of all other tram services in England.
Just before the change from the conduit system a new type of tram was seen in Blackpool. It was a double decked tram, able to carry more passengers than any other tramcar in England - the massive Dreadnought. To facilitate quick and easy loading the entrire end of the tram was turned into a huge entrance. The centre gave access to the lower deck whilst curving staircases swept up at either side, leading to the upper deck.
The Dreadnought was the only tram with this type of entrance, for Blackpool had bought the patent rights from the designer, George Shrewsbury. The trams were a huge success and operated along the Promenade for over thirty years.

By 1930 tramway systems were disappearing all over the country as more and more buses and trolley-buses were used in towns and cities. In Blackpool there were calls for the replacement of the trams with buses even though the existing bus routes were losing money.