page_title: Blackpool Illuminations
section_title: Illuminated cars
hierarchical_section_title: Blackpool Illuminations / Modern-day Illuminations / Illuminated cars
caption_attribution_description: English: illuminated Western Train Circular Tour Tramcar, Blackpool Promenade
context_page_description: Blackpool Illuminations is an annual lights festival, founded in 1879 and first switched on 18 September that year, held each autumn in the British seaside resort of Blackpool on the Fylde Coast in Lancashire.
  Also known locally as The Lights or The Illuminations, they run each year for sixty-six days, from late August until early November at a time when most other English seaside resorts' seasons are coming to an end. They are 6.2 miles long and use over one million bulbs. The display stretches along the Promenade from Starr Gate at the south end of the town to Bispham in the north.
  In 2013 the Illuminations were originally meant to shine from 30 August to 3 November. However, on 14 March 2013, it was announced that the festival had been extended by a week, shining until 10 November, making it the first time that the Illuminations ran for 73 consecutive days. This happened again in 2014 when they shone from 29 August to 9 November. The Illuminations have returned to shining for the regular 66 days since 2015.
  Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020 Blackpool Illuminations display will be extended again, running from September 4th 2020 until January 3rd 2021.
context_section_description: There are a variety of rebuilt single deck cars, of different designs, all of which were rebuilt as illuminated theme trams. These run along the illuminated part of the Promenade during the Illuminations. A campaign by the local newspaper, the Blackpool Gazette in 2006 to get one of the Illuminated trams, Western Train, back on track, resulted in a £278,000 Heritage Lottery Fund grant to restore the tramcar which first ran in 1962. It was withdrawn from service in 1999 and had stood derelict at the Rigby Road depot. The tramcar is due to return during the Illuminations Switch-On in 2008. In January 2008 it was revealed that another iconic illuminated tram, the Rocket tram, which had been in service between 1961 and 1999 but which had since then stood idle, is also due to be restored with expectation being that it would return to service for the Illuminations in 2009 at a cost of about £150,000 and with the help of the Friends of the Illuminations group.
caption: Illuminated Western Train Tramcar
exif: {}