The curse of the Trolley bus ……..

I hated trolley buses and did my best to avoid them at home in southeast London.

                           Trolley bus, no, 1786, Regent Street, 2014

Sadly, I couldn’t dodge those silent purveyors of overheated cabins which reeked of disinfectant, warm upholstery and worn leather when I stayed with my grandparents in Derby. 

The journey back to the village of Chellaston was an ordeal I dreaded and always made me ill. 

Occasionally I have revisited this monstrous mix of tram and motor bus, but only to pour scorn on them confident that they are now passing out of living memory. *

Manchester Corporation flirted with them from 1938 till 1966 and even operated some with neighbouring Ashton- Under-Lyne, and in the collection, I have pictures of Manchester’s red trolley buses parked up or passing those of other local authorities.

Paying for a trolley journey, undated

But I had always wondered why I couldn’t remember travelling on them in my part of London, because they were there traveling routes through Peckham to New Cross, and Woolwich to Bexleyheath and Dartford. **

The first London trolley buses began their pernicious journey in 1931and four years later the London Transport Passenger Board or as.we.kmew.it .... London Transport took the decision to expand the trolley bus experience which by its peak consisted of 68 routes with a maximum fleet of 1,811 trolley buses.  By comparison Manchester operated nine routes with 189 vehicles.

Happily, as early as 1952 London took the decision to phase them out and during 1959 through to 1962 the cull was achieved, with most of the newer fleet being sold to a Spanish consortium.

And that I think explains why I never had to travel on a London Transport trolley bus, because by the time I was wandering London alone using my Red Rover ticket the last routes were disappearing like snow in a winter sun.

Leaving just the ordeal of the green Derby variant, but that lasted just a few short years.

Happily, I arrived in Manchester just three years after they had consigned theirs to the scrap heap.

Romford Road , Ilford, Route 663 Ilford Broadway - Aldgate, July 1955

But I do rather wish I could remember travelling on the old Corporation trams, those tall stately precursors of the trolley and motor bus.

The last London tram made its last journey in the July of 1952.  It was car no. 1951 and travelled the five-miles of Route 40 from Woolwich to New Cross via Charlton and Greenwich. And as such pretty much covered all of my part of southeast London.

Family tradition has me at the New Cross depot when car 1951 trundled in.

Alas I have no memory of the event, which is a shame, because there can’t be that many of us left who were there.*** 

Still while I may mourn not remembering car 1951, I can’t say I would have made an effort to wave goodbye to the last trolley bus.

But I won't be churlish, and for those who hold trolley buses close there is a fine cutaway diagram of a London Transport trolley bus along with a tram in The Eagle Book of Cutaways, 1988, alas copyright prevents me from showing it.

Pictures; 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, Romford Road at Manor Park, Ilford, Route 663 Ilford Broadway - Aldgate, July 13, 1955,Ben Brooksbank, Permission, Creative Commons Attribution Share-alike license 2.0 trolley bus ticket, undated, from the collection of Kelly Richards

*Trolleybuses, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search?q=Trolley+buses

**Trolleybus and Tram Routes, 1947, Mapping London, https://mappinglondon.co.uk/2018/trolleybus-tram-routes-1947/

***The last Manchester tram completed its last journey in 1949, the year I was born