REPLACING TRAMS

New Zealand Herald, Volume LXXIV, Issue 22864, 20 October 1937, Page 9

REPLACING TRAMS

ROUTES IN LONDON USE OF TROLLEY BUSES GENERAL BRITISH TENDENCY [from our own correspondent] LONDON, Oct. 2 Methods of transporting the London public are gradually changing. Trams are giving way to trolley buses. Recently a replacement was effected on five routes in South London, one being 13 miles in length. The change-over means an addition of 102 trolley buses, each to seat 70 passengers. Altogether, there are now 600 of these buses in use. The distance covei'ed by all routes is 147 miles. It is likely that at the end of the year more than half of London's 330 miles of tramways will have disappeared. The estimated cost of the total conversion, which it is hoped to complete within five years, will be £10,000,000. Parliamentary powers had to be acquired by the London Passenger Transport Board, who took over the tramways from the London County Council in July, 1933, and further powers will have to be sought for some of the more difficult routes. When the whole fleet is in being London will have nearly 2500 trolley buses in commission. Some critics have wondered why trolley buses are preferred to ordinary buses in substitution for tramears. The board states that the advantages aro several. The tendency throughout the country is for the tram to disappear, and within recent months more than 50 miles of track have gone. But certain large centres, such as Glasgow, where 11,000 tramears are in operation, Leeds, Liverpool and Edinburgh are abiding by the trams. Varying traffic and population conditions in towns are determining authorities as to the rival claims of tram and trolley bus. Where the population has "moved out" the trolley bus is in demand, and the tramcar has declined, and some cities —Glasgow and Liverpool, as cases in point—aro still described as ideal tramway towns. The first electric trams in England ran in Birkenhead in 1885, but it was not until the dawn of this contury'that this mode of transport became general. Birkenhead has always been the pioneer town, for it was hero that the first street tramway in Europe, horse-driven, began to operate.