1141 - Blackpool Tramway: Blackpool Air Show split service on Saturday 8th August 2026

Welcome to Podbaba Transport Video 1141. On Saturday 8th August 2026, we visited the Blackpool Tramway starting at Starr Gate and walking to North Pier and Blackpool North railway station to film the split tram service in operation during the Blackpool Air Show. Three trams were maintaining the very quiet section from Starr Gate to Manchester Square, travelling on out of service to Foxhall crossover where they reversed in a totally enclosed box and returned to Starr Gate. The three trams were: 003 007 018 We filmed them many times as we walked and they never became really busy despite there being Customer Service assistants at every stop. When we arrived at Foxhall, for some inexplainable reason the service fell apart and there was a gap of more than thirty minutes before two arrived together at Manchester Square and set back really quickly to Starr Gate. We walked through to North Pier and Talbot Square and, here, there were ten trams maintaining the service between Blackpool North railway station and Fleetwood Fisherman's Walk. Trams were running late but were maintaining a regular frequency until around 2pm and then, with Blackpool Transport managers on location at North Pier, everything, again inexplicably, fell apart. Huge gaps appeared as queues built at North Pier tram stop then Bombardier Flexity 2, 006, arrived on its way to North Station. It missed the signal as a manager stopped it to let pedestrians cross and then sat there, and sat there, and sat there until three more trams were behind it and somebody has the forethought to change the points and change them back - tram drivers are taught how to reset the signals in this way but, seemingly, not managers. Four trams then proceeded up Talbot Road to North Station and, before any had the chance to come back, another two arrived and went up Talbot Road. 006 returned first showing Fisherman's Walk but got stuck on the point changing breaker in Talbot Square. By the time it set off once more, the screens in the drivers' cab had failed and it went round to North Pier where a queue reminiscent of Tours of Illuminations queues in the 1980s had built. Despite being demic, it was loaded to capacity with customers taking around 15 minutes of setting and resetting the tram before someone decided to unload the tram once more of well over two hundred and fifty people whose place on the platform had already been taken by more people, causing even more chaos. To add insult to injury, the tram behind was only going to Cabin and nobody changed that arrangement despite watching it all unfold from across the tracks. By the time that all of this organised chaos - it was organised - there were now eight of the ten north side trams in Talbot Road causing hold ups to the buses. The ten north side trams were: 002 004 006 009 011AD 013AD 014AD 015AD 016AD Eventually someone decided to start turning trams short but it was done totally the wrong way round - the front tram going to Fisherman's Walk, the next to Thornton Gate, the next to Little Bispham, the next to Bispham then another Fisherman's Walk. Of course, the way to clear crowds of people is to send the first to the nearest terminus and the last to the furthest so that the Fleetwood tram takes all of the customers wanting to go the furthest - but it simply didn't happen and the queues got longer and the waiting times at the stop inevitably get longer. "Organised chaos watched from afar" by managers. We left by the time we had filmed all of this going on and we boarded bus 443 at Market Street on Line 11 running well over twenty minutes late because of diversions away from the Promenade. Bus 417 was behind also on Line 11 but did nothing to assist despite the fact that we left absolutely packed. At Highfield Road, it caught us up, still full and the driver really laid into awaiting customers shouting at them that they must bet on 443 despite it being full. He had to let them on at that stage but then sat at Highfield Road for well over twenty minutes before appearing at Starr Gate some twenty five minutes after we had left bus 443 and with another Line 11 following closely behind. A really poor example of how to represent the UK's Bus Operator of the Year. Will they sit down, hopefully in a pub, after the show is over today to debrief and look at how to do it better on Sunday 9th August? I suspect not, but it was the worst chaos we have ever witnessed on the Tramway and today was entirely orchestrated - it didn't happen by chance! Thank you for watching this 2026 Youtube Podbaba Transport presentation. We really hope that you will enjoy it and give it a “thumbs up”. Thank you. a Podbaba Transport presentation Saturday 8th August 2026