It is almost 100 years since the first tram was preserved in Britain, in the century since then a great variety of trams have been saved from tramway systems small and large. Some trams were purchased directly out of service and others were acquired after many years alternative usage, some being summer houses or homes, while others were used on farms or allotments where they served as sheds and out buildings, before being lovingly restored over many years. The story of tram preservation is not wholly positive, in the early days many trams suffered from being stored in the open at unsafe sites, where the historic vehicles were often subjected to acts of vandalism and suffered badly from the weather. This changed to a large extent in 1959, with the acquisition of the site of the future National Tramway Museum at Crich in Derbyshire,, where a comprehensive collection of trams from all over Britain and also foreign tram networks has been assembled, to secure a collection of tramcars for future generations. There is also today fine collections of trams in other museums in Britain and Ireland, which cover much of the rich history of this once common form of public transport. This book looks at almost 200 of these trams when they were in service, through historic photographs, prior to their withdrawal and eventual preservation.

Marking 90 years of London Transport, this selection of images celebrates its buses, trams and trolleybuses in preservation.

It is almost 100 years since the first tram was preserved in Britain, in the century since then a great variety of trams have been saved from tramway systems small and large. Some trams were purchased directly out of service and others were acquired after many years alternative usage, some being summer houses or homes, while others were used on farms or allotments where they served as sheds and out buildings, before being lovingly restored over many years. The story of tram preservation is not wholly positive, in the early days many trams suffered from being stored in the open at unsafe sites, where the historic vehicles were often subjected to acts of vandalism and suffered badly from the weather. This changed to a large extent in 1959, with the acquisition of the site of the future National Tramway Museum at Crich in Derbyshire, where a comprehensive collection of trams from all over Britain and also foreign tram networks has been assembled, to secure a collection of tramcars for future generations. There is also today fine collections of trams in other museums in Britain and Ireland, which cover much of the rich history of this once common form of public transport. This book looks at almost 200 of these trams when they were in service, through historic photographs, prior to their withdrawal and eventual preservation.

The period of Britain’s Industrial Revolution was perhaps the most transformative era in the nation’s history. Between about 1750 and 1914, life and work, home and school, church and community changed irreversibly for Britain’s rapidly expanding population. Lives were transformed, some for the better, but many endured abysmal domestic and workplace conditions. Eventually improvements were made to Britain’s social fabric which led to the prospect of richer and more fulfilled lives for working men, women and even children. Focusing on 100 objects that either directly influenced, or arose from, these changes, John Broom offers a distinctive insight into this fascinating age. With plentiful illustrations and suggestions for visits to hundreds of places of historical interest, this book makes an ideal companion for a journey into Britain’s industrial past.

During the history of Britain’s electric tramcar fleets, many thousands were manufactured of which the vast majority saw out their operational life with a single owner. However, for several hundred there was to be a second – if not, in certain cases, a third – career with a new operator. Almost from the dawn of the electric era in the late 19th century tramcars were loaned or bought and sold between operators. The reasons for this were multifarious. Sometimes the aspirations of the original owners for traffic proved wildly optimistic and the fleet was downsized to reflect better the actual passenger levels. War was a further cause as operators sought to strengthen their fleets to cater for unexpectedly high level of demand or to replace trams destroyed by enemy action. For other operators, modernization represented an opportunity to sell older cars while, certainly from the 1930s, a number of operators – such as Aberdeen, Leeds and Sunderland – took advantage of the demise of tramways elsewhere to supplement their fleet with trams that were being withdrawn but which still had many years of useful operational life in them. The process was to continue right through to the mid-1950s when Glasgow took advantage of the demise of the once-extensive Liverpool system to purchase a number of the streamlined bogie bogie cars that were built in the late 1930s. In this book the author provides a pictorial history – with detailed captions – to the many electric trams that were to operate with more than one tramway during the period up to the closure of the closure of the Glasgow system in 1962.

This is the second of a new series of books that will cover the history of tramway operation in the British Isles. Focusing on Yorkshire and the North-East of England, this book provides an overview of the history of tramways in the region from the 1860s, when one of the pioneering horse trams that predated the Tramways Act of 1870 operated for a brief period in Darlington, through to the closures of the last traditional tramways – Leeds and Sheffield – in 1959 and 1960, respectively. Concentrating on the systems that survived into 1945 – Bradford, Gateshead, Hull, Leeds, Newcastle, Rotherham, Sheffield, South Shields and Sunderland – the book provides a comprehensive narrative, detailing the history of these operations from 1945 onwards, with full fleet lists, maps and details of route openings and closures. The story is supported by some 200 illustrations, both colour and black and white, many of which have never been published before, that portray the trams that operated in these towns and cities and the routes on which they operated. Bringing the story up-to-date, the book also examines the two second-generation tramways built in the region – the Tyne & Wear Metro and Sheffield Supertram – as well as informing readers where it is still possible to see surviving first-generation trams from the region in preservation.

This volume is the latest in a series of tramway books covering Britains post war tram networks. The book covers the systems that survived the Second World War, in the Midlands and Southern England, except London which will have a separate book.This extensive volume covers all the post war systems from their inception through to closure, with a superb range of images - many of which are previously unpublished - depicting each operation, from horse tram days through to the end. In addition, the comprehensive introduction provides an overview of the myriad other systems that once operated in the region but which did not survive after 1945, featuring such notable towns and cities as Bristol, Coventry and Norwich. Also included in the volume are accounts of the two second-generation systems to operate in the area: Midland Metro and Nottingham Express Transit.

It was to the south-west of Leeds that one of the key lines in the development of Britain’s railway network – the Middleton Railway – established the principle of seeking parliamentary sanction for the construction of a new form of transport. Five decades later in the early nineteenth century it was again the Middleton Railway that was at the forefront of the use of steam – rather than animal – power to move coal from colliery to market. From the early 1830s through until the early years of the twentieth century the local railway network continued to expand; indeed, if it had not been for the outbreak of the First World War in 1914 the area would have played host to one of the last first-generation main lines to be constructed with the Midland Railway planning – and partially constructing – a new main line north from Royston. In the event the line was never completed, consigning Bradford to be served by no more than glorified branch lines. Providing a largely illustrated account to the history of the railway development of the area, the book includes a fascinating selection of illustrations that focus on the evolution of the network in the almost eighty years since the end of the Second World War.

There have been passenger tramways in Britain for 150 years, but it is a rollercoaster story of rise, decline and a steady return. Trams have come and gone, been loved and hated, popular and derided, considered both wildly futuristic and hopelessly outdated by politicians, planners and the public alike. Horse trams, introduced from the USA in the 1860s, were the first cheap form of public transport on city streets. Electric systems were developed in nearly every urban area from the 1890s and revolutionised town travel in the Edwardian era.A century ago, trams were at their peak, used by everyone all over the country and a mark of civic pride in towns and cities from Dover to Dublin. But by the 1930s they were in decline and giving way to cheaper and more flexible buses and trolleybuses. By the 1950s all the major systems were being replaced. Londons last tram ran in 1952 and ten years later Glasgow, the city most firmly linked with trams, closed its network down. Only Blackpool, famous for its decorated cars, kept a public service running and trams seemed destined only for scrapyards and museums.A gradual renaissance took place from the 1980s, with growing interest in what are now described as light rail systems in Europe and North America. In the UK and Ireland modern trams were on the streets of Manchester from 1992, followed successively by Sheffield, Croydon, the West Midlands, Nottingham, Dublin and Edinburgh (2014). Trams are now set to be a familiar and significant feature of twenty-first century urban life, with more development on the way.

“A fine tribute to the thousand-strong fleet of E/1 trams which gave such sterling service to Londoners for nearly fifty years, including two world wars.” —Tramway Review Probably the single most numerous of tramcar constructed for operation on Britain’s first generation electric tramways, the London County Council’s ‘E/1’ class had an operational history that stretched for almost fifty years. The first were produced towards the end of the first decade of the 20th century and the last were withdrawn with the conclusion of ‘Operation Tramaway’—the final conversion of the once great London tramway system—in July 1952. Over the years, more than 1,000 were built for operation by the LCC with similar cars being constructed for a number of the council operated systems in the capital prior to the creation of the LPTB in July 1933. The last batch—effectively rebuilds of single-deck cars that had once operated through the Kingsway Subway prior to its modernization—not completed until the early 1930s. During the 1920s the LCC cars had undergone a Pullmanisation program and, during the following decade, a number underwent the LPTB’s Rehabilitation scheme. Moreover, with the removal of the restriction on the use of enclosed lower-deck vestibules, many others were converted to full-enclosed during that decade. Although withdrawals commenced in the 1930s, as the tram system north of the river was converted to trolleybus operation, and others were lost as a result of enemy action during the war, a sizable number survived to the system’s final days. This book examines the history of this important class from development through to preservation.