TRAM LOSING HOLD

Otago Daily Times, Issue 21621, 16 April 1932, Page 14

TRAM LOSING HOLD

LONDON TRANSPORT FIGHT LONDON, April 7. The drab tram is slowly losing ground in London in its fight with the vivid and easily manoeuvred bus, but a compromise in many places has been the substitution of silent trolley buses foi the noisy rail vehicle. The London United Tramways, Ltd,, has abandoned 17 miles of tramways in the west and south-west suburbs of London and replaced them with trolley buses, which run without rails and on rubber tyres, and by means of extensible overhead trolley poles obtain electric power from the overhead gear which formerly served the tramcar. The extensible trolley pole gives them a horizontal radius of 13 feet from the overhead wire, so that the bus can pull in to the near side of the road for passengers, and. generally manoeuvre like other vehicles. The trolley buses resemble the latest type of London motor buses, but are quieter. They are also in use at Hastings, Southend-on-Sea, Bradford, and Ipswich among other places. They are generally adopted in districts where narrow', tortuous streets make tramcars obstructive to a smooth flow of traffic.

The only serious criticism of them has been from wireless users. Something in the mechanism interfered with wireless reception. A simple device, however, has enabled the company to prevent that. \ The cost of operating a car mile is about 15 per cent, less than the average cost of running the London tramcar. This is partly due to the heavy burden of road maintenance charges imposed upon tramw’ays by the Government. The London United Company has already its capacity to earn more revenue than the tramay system it has replaced. The trolley bus costs £2OOO as against £3OOO for a tramcar. The experience of English tramway concerns has been that it is well worth while, when the time came for road tracks to be renewed on suitable routes, to make the change to a system of trolley buses.