252 - Original livery
254 - Later Livery (Empire Pools)
257 - Wartime Livery
703 - Sunderland Livery
710 - Metro Livery (P)
715 - Metro Livery (B)
722 - TGWU Advertising Livery
1934 Blackpool “Balloon” Double Deck Tramcar
So called because of their rounded shape, the English Electric Balloon cars were introduced in 1934-5 as part of manager Walter Luff’s modernisation programme. There were 14 enclosed cars (250-263) and 13 open toppers (237-249) which were intended to replace the open top high capacity “Dreadnought” class which had been in operation almost since the opening of the tramway.
The totally enclosed “balloons” were used on the Squires Gate route, whilst the open toppers were used on the promenade service.
During World War II the need for the open-top cars diminished, so they were rebuilt as totally enclosed cars, and all the class were repainted in the “Wartime” livery of dark green with cream lining.
Following the introduction of the Coronation class of high speed single deck railcoaches, there was talk of scrapping the double deckers altogether, as they required a three man crew and were slow to load, but the Coronations were soon found to be very unreliable and expensive to run, so the Balloons again found favour.
In 1968 they were re-numbered to 700-726. Since then many of them have been rebuilt, some completely beyond recognition into the “Jubilee” and “Millennium” cars and others have been scrapped.