In Piccadilly …….. looking at the future

Now that like from Monty Python “No one expects the Spanish Inquisition” could be the title for this picture of Piccadilly.

There, lined up are a group of tall, stately trams which had dominated the city’s public transport system.

Just a few years before this picture was taken, Manchester Corporation Tramways carried 328 million passengers, on 953 trams, via 46 routes, along 292 miles.

And according to the Official Handbook of the City Council in 1925, 50% of all passengers paid  one old penny for their journey, while .01% travelled the full route which cost seven old pennies. *

But there, lurking just to the side of these trams was their nemesis, in the form of the bus, which through the 1930s along with the trolley bus had been replacing the tram.

This slow death was formalized in 1937 with the decision to get rid of trams in favour of buses or trolley buses.

Already the old name of the Manchester Corporation Tramways had been dropped in favour of Manchester Corporation Transport.

And had it not been for the last world war, the tram would have vanished from our streets long before 1949, when the last rattled its last journey.

Location; Manchester

Picture; Albert Square to East Didsbury, date unknown, from the collection of Allan Brown





*Official Handbook 1926, Manchester City Council