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    Trolleybus Twilight: Britain's Last Trolleybus Systems
    Trolleybus Twilight: Britain's Last Trolleybus Systems
    Trolleybus Twilight: Britain's Last Trolleybus Systems
    Ebook172 pages42 minutes

    Trolleybus Twilight: Britain's Last Trolleybus Systems

    By Jim Blake

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    About this ebook

    In this new photographic album from Pen & Sword, transport historian and photographer Jim Blake presents a fascinating selection of pictures of a form of public transport now sadly missing from Britain's streets trolleybuses.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherOpen Road Integrated Media
    Release dateApr 30, 2017
    ISBN9781473861480
    Trolleybus Twilight: Britain's Last Trolleybus Systems
    Author

    Jim Blake

    Jim Blake was born at the end of 1947, and he soon developed a passionate interest in railways, buses and trolleybuses. In 1965, he bought a colour cine-camera, with which he captured what is now very rare footage of long-lost buses, trolleybuses and steam locomotives. These transport photographs have been published in various books and magazines. Jim also started the North London Transport Society and, in conjunction with the group, he has compiled and published a number of books on the subject since 1977, featuring many of the 100,000 or so transport photographs he has taken over the years.

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      Book preview

      Trolleybus Twilight - Jim Blake

      INTRODUCTION

      Today, many towns and cities in continental Europe have flourishing trolleybus systems, employing the latest types of vehicles as well as the latest technology needed for their operation. Yet in Britain, trolleybuses are but a distant memory, with the last traditional British trolleybus system having perished in Bradford in the spring of 1972.

      How different things were when I was a youngster in the 1950s and early 1960s! I was fortunate to have been born and brought up in the heart of what was then the largest trolleybus system in the world, that of London Transport. We lived in Canonbury, with route 611 passing our home and within a ride of just five minutes or so of what must have been one of the busiest trolleybus junctions in the world, that at Holloway, Nag's Head, where eleven different trolleybus routes connecting central London with various north London suburbs converged. Therefore it was only natural that my favourite mode of road passenger transport should be the trolleybus, as it still is today.

      Most British trolleybus systems, the majority of which were run by municipal authorities in the towns and cities they served, had been inaugurated during the inter-war years to replace trams. This was quite a sensible move, since much of the electrical infrastructure needed for the trams could be adapted for trolleybus operation. Unfortunately, with one or two notable exceptions such as in Cardiff, the Second World War halted the further spread of trolleybus operation for the duration. This was no more starkly obvious than in London, where most of the trams south of the River Thames survived the war as a result. When hostilities had ended, it was decided to replace them by motor buses rather than trolleybuses, and only two years after the last trams had run in July 1952, the decision was taken to replace London's trolleybuses by motor buses as well. At this period, London Transport was Britain's biggest bus operator, and it was no surprise that all other operators followed London's lead by abandoning their trolleybus systems too. Thus just under ten years after London's last trolleybuses ran in service in May 1962, so did the last in Britain, in Bradford in March

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