Bispham Depot and situated down Red Bank Road, was…

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Bispham Depot and situated down Red Bank Road, was the headquarters of the Blackpool and Fleetwood Tramroad Company, and it is interesting to compare its somewhat spartan structure with that of Marton Depot.
The Bispham site housed not only the depot, but also the power station, offices and manager’s house.
The latter, named Pooldhooie , is the only one of the buildings which can be seen today as the Bispham Conservative Club and the others have been demolished in 1983 for a Sainsbury’s store.
As originally built and the depot was only half its eventual size, being extended in 1914 over the reservoir of the power station, which was behind.
This reservoir, fed by a natural stream, was revealed when the depot was demolished and to the consternation of the developers!
Throughout its life and the depot was associated with the Fleetwood route, and was known by the employees as “The Other Firm “.
It was closed as a running-shed between 1934 and 1940, but was then in daily use until the arrival of the last North Station car ” 290 ” on 27 October 1963.
Bispham was then used as a store, and the final car ” Coronation 313 ” left on 5 January 1966. Central Repair Works 1920
The lack of a proper repair works was keenly felt at the end of the First World War, when the fleet was very run-down.
The old Highways Yard in Rigby Road with its railway connection and seemed to offer an ideal site.
In 1920, a connecting line was built from Blundell Street to the railway siding, and the site was laid out in the form of a tramway avenue and served by a tram traverser installed in 1922.
This was a moving platform which carried trams sideways and give them access to the rows of workshops which were built alongside.
These were old aircraft hangars reassembled on site by the Department’s workmen, however they housed an efficient car works which had built forty new trams by 1929.
The Works continued in this form until the early Sixties, when there was a major reorganisation which swept away the traverser and the old hangars to make room for a bus park.
Trams and buses henceforward shared the same Body and Paint shops, while a new Fitting shop was created in an adjacent building fronting on to the Coliseum. 1.
The site of the present Transport Offices is here occupied by an old Marton Box car which has collected a cable-drum from the railway siding of the Lancashire and Yorkshire Railway at Rigby Road. 2.
The paint shop staff at Blundell Street Depot in 1908, where car-painting was carried out in a corner of the depot surrounded by sheeting, until transferred to Marton in September 1911. 3.
The pristine Gondola has just emerged from the new paint-shop, opened in 1922, and is about to be moved sideways on the traverser. In the background, a railway wagon awaits collection.
Rigby Road 1935
The only depot now in operation is that in Hopton Road, which was opened in summer 1935 to house the streamlined fleet newly in service.
It was the intention to operate all the service cars from here during winter months and close the outlying depots.
Although achieved briefly, it was not until the closure of the street routes in the early Sixties and that the fleet was centralised on this depot.
Originally the depot was to be known as Kirby Hall, in recognition of its dual role as an exhibition hall.