Electric trams started to appear in London at the beginning of the 1900s and were originally well-liked. Later disadvantages were seen to be the high cost of maintaining the tracks, the inflexibility of the routes and the trams causing traffic congestion. In the early 1920s trams began to encounter competition from diesel buses.
In 1931 London United Tramways began converting the tramways to trolleybuses, which were found to be more popular than the trams. Prior to the war breaking out in 1939 the London Transport Passenger Board, set up in 1933, made the decision to replace its extensive tram network with trolleybuses. This transition was paused in 1940, due to the Second World War, had it not been for this suspension London’s trams would have disappeared from its streets a decade earlier than was to be the case. London's last tram week started on 29 June, with the trams ending on Saturday 5 July 1952. The tram system was replaced by a fleet of modern diesel buses.
After the war London Transport saw no long-term future for the trolleybuses either, the relative cheapness of oil meant that diesel buses were soon to prevail. The last of the London’s trolleybuses were retired from service in 1962.
In London Trams and Trolleybuses the author, Michael H.C. Baker, has compiled a selection of images, taken from the Transport Treasury’s vast archive of photos of rail and road vehicles. Most of the black & white photographs were taken around the 1950s and each image is accompanied by a descriptive caption.
123 black & white photographs. 80 pages.