Trolleybus 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath ….. now that’s a zippy title

Now I have my old friend Richard Woods to thank for igniting memories of trolley buses.

 Tolleybus no. 1768, 2014

He sent over a link to a trip from Woolwich to Bexleyheath in 1959 on Trolleybus 698, which followed on from an equally fascinating home movie about the old, old Woolwich ferry as it crossed the River in 1961.*

Of the two the Ferry will always be more special to me.

Not so the trolley bus which seemed calculated to make me feel very wretched.  

I think it was the mix of heat, that faint smell of disinfectant and the slight whirring noise, which guaranteed to make me feel sick before the end of any journey.

So, I approached TROLLEYBUS 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath with a bit of trepidation, but was won over by the scenes as it made its almost silent smooth way from the cinema facing the River.

A Manchester rival, 1955

It is a spot I remember well, because a decade later I stood at the same place waiting for a bus to work, and remember that even on summer’s day it could be a miserable place at 6 in the morning, made worse in winter when the rain came off the water and penetrated each layer of clothing.

My Wikipedia tells me that “Trolleybuses served the London Passenger Transport Area from 1931 until 1962. For much of its existence, the London system was the largest in the world. It peaked at 68 routes, with a maximum fleet of 1,811 trolleybuses”.** 

So that is it.  

For some the attraction of the home movie will be the trolley bus, for others the scenery and for anyone born after 1962 perhaps it will the novelty of seeing this thing that looked like a bus with echoes of the tram.

One of my nieces did recently ask me what was a trolley bus?  To which this film does the bit. 

Location; on the trolley bus from Woolwich

Picture; Preserved London Transport Q1 class trolleybus no. 1768, on display at the Regent Street Bus Cavalcade held as part of the Year of the Bus. No. 1768 ran on services in West London between 1948 and 1961. Following its withdrawal, it was retained for preservation. As of 2014, it was owned by the London Transport Museum. June 2014. Author; Bahnfrend. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license. Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1955, m48371, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass  

*TROLLEYBUS 698 Woolwich-Bexleyheath London 1959, YouTube, by Alan Snowdon Archive, https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=old+woolwich+ferry+engine+videos&&view=detail&mid=3DACF91326BDA4A52B813DACF91326BDA4A52B81&rvsmid=37FDE2E288F635F8664937FDE2E288F635F86649&FORM=VDQVAP

**Trolleybuses in London, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trolleybuses_in_London