The double deck Balloon Tram was designed for Blackpool Corporation, and followed the sucess of the single deck Railcoach introduced in 1933. Built to a similar design to that used for the Railcoach, the first of 27 examples entered service in 1934 and were originally allocated fleet numbers 237 - 263.

During 1968 the Balloons were renumbered 700 to 726 and all but one remain with Blackpool Transport today. The majority remain is service however several are now withdrawn awaiting overhauls and 705 was scrapped following an serious collision in 1980.

The Balloons like Blackpool's other trams have received there fair share of all over advertisment liveries in recent years, many of these have been faithfully reproduced on the OOC models along with the various styles of the standard livery used in last 70 years or so.

A more detailed history of these and other Blackpool trams can be found on the Blackpool Tramways Website.

The first OOC releases occured in July 1997, the model comes in two versions with or without cove roof light windows, the trams can also be produced with the earlier pole style or later pantograph overhead pick ups.
The majority of models issued prior to April 2003 were not certificated, and Corgi hasn't stated production quantities for most of these releases.

A single deck Blackpool Railcoach tram (440 / OM440) was added to the range in 1999.