Taking the curve into Shudehill ………….

Now I am a fan of our tram network, and I never tire of watching them move across the city at a stately pace, taking the curves and twists bequeathed by our old road network.

Taking the curve into Shudehill, 2022

All of which says much for the skill of the Metro engineers who managed to plot routes using those roads some of which date back into the late 18th century.

And one of my favourite spots is Balloon Street where trams effortlessly take the bendy way up from Corporation Street crossing Dantzic Street before sliding into the Shudehill stop.

Before the tram Balloon Street was just a cut through up from Victoria Station which I sometimes also used to visit the Co-op archives.

But now the route is closed to traffic and is exclusively given over to the trams which emerge from the canyon like street flanked by tall buildings with a bit of grace.

Location; Manchester

Picture; taking the curve into Shudehill, 2022, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

“A single to Well Hall” ...... travelling the tram in the “Last Tram Week”

History comes in many shapes and sizes, from serious books on great events to the humble object which offers up an insight into how we lived.

So I am indebted to Lesley, who on the back of a recent tram story told me that she still had a collection of tram tickets her mum bought during the “Last Tram Week in July 1952”.

Now I always get excited about seeing and especially handling bits of our collective past.

Back in the late 1970s I walked away from the excavations at Viking York with a genuine Viking oyster shell.  The archaeologists had unearthed so many that they were being sold in a barrel for 10p each.

On a more studious note, while writing the book on the Story of Chorlton-cum-Hardy in the early 19th century I used the hand written minutes of the local Poor Law Committee.

The volume began in 1834 and ran through to 1852 and I think apart from the chap who wrote up the minutes and perhaps a few others I will have been the only person to turn the pages in almost 170 years.

So looking at Lesley’s tram tickets is a fascinating link with that last week that London Transport ran trams through the city.

I was just short of my third birthday and though there is a family story that Dad took me down to the New Cross Depot, I have no memory of the event.

But like so many people of my generation, those tall stately trams have a lasting romantic pull and have of course now been resurrected by  by fleets of sleek new trams which have returned to many of our cities.

These are more comfortable, and faster but a bit of me would yearn to hop on one outside the old family home on Well Hall Road and rattle up to the High Street and north into Woolwich.

I can’t, so Lesley’s tickets will have to do.

Leaving me just to reiterate that old observation ...... be careful what you throw away for today’s rubbish will be someone’s priceless piece of history in the future.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; tram tickets from “The Last Tram Week”, July 1952, from the collection of Lesley Ross, 2018

Travelling on LCC tram number 1622 with memories of the Old Kent Road and Well Hall

Now I missed travelling on a tram by just a matter of years, but had I been born a little earlier I might well have been on this one that rattled its way up from the Old Kent Road to Westminster.

And just possibly also taken the 44 and 46 which connected Eltham with Woolwich.

According to family legend I was actually there at New Cross when the last London tram took its last journey in the summer of 1952 but until yesterday I never thought I would come close to one.

Now I know I could visit the London Transport Museum where there is a fine 1910 tram from West Ham Tramways Corporation, but my number 40 which was the one my dad would have used is even closer to home.

It is in the collection of CRICH TRAMWAY VILLAGE just south of Matlock which is no distance for me but I accept is a long way from south east London.

But your loss is our gain and I have planned my visit.

In the meantime I have settled for a picture of LCC number 1622 which plied route 40 from New Cross.

It comes from my old friend Andy Robertson who has been recording the changes to the twin cities of Manchester and Salford and decided to take an afternoon off and visit the museum.

And there is plenty else to see from a Blackpool tram complete with its destination board announcing a Tour of the Illuminations to the Red Lion Hotel which was once in Stoke on Trent and facing demolition was rescued by the museum rebuilt and happily once again serves up a pint.

In his collection of pictures from the day is the sign on a Leeds tram informing passengers that “Spitting is Forbidden” which made sense in an age before antibiotics and the dangers from a range of infectious diseases was all too common.

It is I think Andy's favourite  while for me it will always be the number 40

Which just leaves me to mention Trams in Eltham by John Kennett** and The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins which includes a chapter on that last tram at New Cross.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/

** Trams in Eltham  by John Kennett, Eltham Society, http://www.theelthamsociety.org.uk/publications.php

*** The Campaign To Save The London Trams by Ann Watkins, http://www.kentarchaeology.ac/authors/019.pdf

Missing the tram in Milan

Now it is odd just what you can miss on a visit to Milan.

Crossing under the Porta Nuova 2013

Some of our family live just a little north of the city in Varese and we sometimes take the train to Milan, but although I see them in the distance I have never caught a Milan tram.

The service began in 1881 and now extends to 170 km with 17 urban lines and one interurban line and about half of the tram lines pass by, or terminate near Piazza del Duomo.

So given that the piazza is a favourite spot you would think we would have hopped on one but no, and I don’t think I have even got a picture.

So there you are.

Location; Milan

Picture; Trams numbers 1754 and 1582 of the ATM of Milan under the Arches of Porta Nuova, 2013,  Giorgio Stagni, who as the creator has licensed the picture under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.

Stabling the trams for the night ……. in Leicester ..... where they looked after their trams

Now the inscription on the red plaque beside the entrance pretty much says it all.

“Stoneygate Tram Depot 1904-1922. 

A rare example of a 'District Car Shed’ built to stable and service trams on a newly extended and electrified municipal tram route. 

For Further information visit www. transportheritage.com”

And the link offered up that “Red Wheels commemorate Britain's rich and globally important legacy in the development of transport. 

Our aim is to present a comprehensive overview for each site, in a way that will attract a new and wider audience.

The most significant of these locations are marked by erecting a National Transport Trust Heritage Plaque or “Red Wheel” on the physical site. 

You can use the extensive search functions within this website to locate sites of greatest significance. To date we have placed over 150 Red Wheels around the UK”.

And at some point, they got round to placing the plaque on a big brick shed on Leicester’s London Road which is a wide and busy place.

Our Joshua fell across it recently commenting "it’s round the corner from us, an old tram stop I never knew existed".

According to the accompanying notice board Leicester Corporation built the district depot in 1904 at the end of the Stoneygate route.  

“It could house six tram cars [and] was close to the racecourse. On race days up to 30 trams would wait at the terminus to take racegoers back to town.  The depot closed in 1922 when the Central Depot was enlarged.  The last of Leicester’s tram ran in 1949.

Since 1922 the Depot has been used for various purposes including a garage, a wartime fire station and a railway museum complete with full scale locomotives.  And because we all need them the outer building was converted into a public lavatory.”

So that is it.   But I like the idea of stabling the trams.

Location; Leicester

Pictures; Stoneygate Tram Depot, 2022, from the collection of Joshua Simpson

Budapest ........ where the trams are yellow and are fun to travel

Now the trams of Budapest are proof that nothing beats a journey on a bright yellow tram.

That said the city’s trams have had their ups and downs since the first horse drawn service began in Pest on the east side of the Danube in 1865, quickly followed by another in Buda run by a rival company.

Within 20 years there were fifteen lines and by 1944 the network had grown to 66 lines.

But the siege of Budapest which damaged much of the city including the tram network, followed by a switch to trolley buses and petrol powered buses almost did for the tram.

But not quite and today after a policy flip the tram network is growing again and as of 2015 there were 33 lines, including the delightful Budapest Cog-wheel Railway which for those who like detail is Tram line number 60 and runs every from 5 am till 11 at night along 3.7 km of track.

I have Julie to thank for the pictures of the tram and for bringing to my attention the story of Budapest’s tram service.

And the rest as they say is a collection of Budapest's best along which Julie's endorsement of what a "fantastic transport system in Budapest has, with
trams,trolly buses, metro,buses and a water taxi on the Danube and all very cheap."


Location Budapest

Picture;  big yellow tram, small maroon one and number 2 route, 2015, from the collection of Julie Thomas

Painting Well Hall and Eltham ........ nu 9 ........ catching the tram*

Now I know route number 40 never went through Well Hall

We had  routes 44 and 46, but this one is close enough.

It ran via the Old Kent Road and Westminster to the Embankment.

But it is special because it was one of the trams I might just have caught had I been old enough, given that we once lived close to the Old Kent Road.

And knowing how special LCC 1622 was to me, Peter offered to paint it from a picture taken back in 2015 by Andy Robertson.

At which point I could go into great detail on the story of the Woolwich and Eltham trams, but I won't.

Instead I will merely say that when the Government settled on Well Hall for its huge housing estate for the Arsenal workers in 1915 our tram network had already been in place for five years and following the Great War the network was extended to Lee, Lewisham and London.

Which I think neatly gets in a bit of Well Hall’s history alongside my tram and leave me just to correct the story, because Sonia tells me that that the "72 tram went to New Cross through Well Hall all along Westhorne."

Location; London

Painting; LCC tram 1622 © 2016 Peter Topping from a photograph by Andy Robertson, 2015.

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Picture,s https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Painting Well Hall and Eltham, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Painting%20Well%20Hall%20and%20

A little bit of New York in Vienna .......... travelling the Amerikaner

I always like those little messy stories which are not what you expect and take you off in all sorts of directions.

The Amerikaer in Vienna, 2006

This is Peter’s painting of a tram in Vienna which he told me came from New York.

Now there is nothing odd about transport networks buying foreign rolling stock.

All around the world tram and railway companies along with bus operators regularly buy both new and second hand.

What makes this one just a little different is the history behind it.

There have been trams in Vienna since 1865 and today it is the fifth largest tram network in the world with 175.9 kilometres, and 1,071 stations.*

And for those who revel in tram facts, in 2013, 293 million passengers travelled on Vienna’s 525 tramcars.

The service reached its peak during the interwar years but like so many European cities it was much knocked about during the Second World War.

In the case of Vienna most of its 4000 trams had been badly damaged with 400 of them beyond repair.

At which point the Amerikaner enters the story, because these were the trams Vienna acquired in 1948 under the Marshall Plan.**

There were 41 of them, shipped over from New York, and they became known as the Amerikaner.  They were slightly wider than the Austrian ones, had air operated doors, automatic retractable ramps and seat backs which could be changed so that passengers always faced forwards.  At which point Ron will point out that our old Corporation trams had the same facility.

What makes the Amerikaner just that bit more special is that New York abandoned its trams in the 1950s, leaving only its overhead Roosevelt Island Tramway.

So unusual, I used it again

That said there were plans to reintroduce trams to New York a year ago and I must check out whether that has happened.***

So not only was Peter’s tram journey a tad unusual he was riding history.

No wonder he was moved to paint the picture.



Location; Vienna, with an option on New York

Painting; the Amerikaner  © Peter Topping, 2008

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

*Trams in Vienna, Wikipedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trams_in_Vienna

**The Marshall Plan, or the European Recovery Program, was a bold American initiative to assist Western Europe rebuild it economies with $13 billion.

*** New York tram stages an unlikely comeback, Robert Wright, Financial Times, New York, February 4, 2016,  https://www.ft.com/content/133c1c58-cb5c-11e5-a8ef-ea66e967dd44

A tram, the Tower and a bit of sun and sand ........... Blackpool on a day out

Now I have to confess that I have only visited Blackpool three times and have never travelled on one of the trams.

All of which is my loss.

The first time was a family holiday now lost in the mists of history, the second was a trip to the Tower and the last was part of a day spent touring the coast.

Now according to one source, “the Blackpool tramway runs from Blackpool to Fleetwood on the Fylde Coast in Lancashire, England. 

It was the last surviving first-generation tramway in the United Kingdom until it was replaced by a fleet of modern Supertrams in 2012. 

However, today the traditional trams still provide a 'heritage service' on weekends, bank holidays and during the summer. 

The line dates back to 1885 and is one of the oldest electric tramways in the world. 

It is operated by Blackpool Transport (BTS), and runs for 11 miles and carries 6,500,000 passengers each year.”*

All of which is enough history and tram facts as you are going to get.

Instead I suggest you go looking for this tram which local artist Peter Topping painted on one of his more frequent trips to the resort.

But then he is a Preston man unlike me who was born  and brought up in south East London and had to rely on Brighton and Clacton for a bit of sea side fun neither of which had a tram






Painting; Blackpool Tram © Peter Topping, Paintings from Pictures,
Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk 
Facebook:  Paintings from Pictures

*Blackpool tramway, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blackpool_tramway

Travels with a tram …………… the one from Swadlincote

I wasn’t quite prepared for the journey I ended up on when I started searching for the Cutting in Swadlincote.

And it all started with this picture postcard, which is undated, and fell into the collection a few years ago.

At the time I marked it down as a story but not quite yet.

Now as stories go it could have touched on holidays I spent with my grandparents in Derby, which is only 11 miles from Swadlincote.

So, the chances are, I did visit the place but sadly I have no memory of the place of doing so.

And that lead to a trawl of the internet, which threw up various estate agents who were advertising properties in the Cutting, a link to post codes and a hairdresser.

But Swadlincote has a tourist information centre and through them I have a link to a local studies group.*

All of which means that in time I will be able to speak with a degree of authority on the Cutting, Swadlincote and perhaps even the tram.

For now, I am content to reflect on how a picture postcard has the power to send me off in all sorts of directions.

Location; Swadlincote

Picture; The Cutting, Swadlincote, date unknown, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*The Magic Attic, http://www.magicattic.org.uk/

That special excursion from Alex ..... taking in a big square, a very tall building and ending with a museum

This is a tram story, although along the way it reveals a bit of detective work, includes one of those preservation societies and ends in a museum which was once the HQ of the secret police.

And it started with a series of tram pictures posted by my friend Kathy when she was in Berlin.

Now I can’t resist a picture of a tram and so when she posted a collection on to social media I was hooked.

This is tram 5984 on route 63.

Intrigued I looked over my pocket guide to Berlin tram routes, but nowhere is there a route 63, although there was once a 60 and a 66 which trundled  respectively along  Schöneberg, Lindenhof – Charlottenburg, Königin-Elisabeth-Straße and Schöneberg, Wartburgplatz – Steglitz, Thorwaldsenstraße.

But number 60 was withdrawn in 1962 and 68 the following year.

Undeterred I went looking for Sonderfahrt which appears on the destination board at the front of the tram only to discover it is not a place but German for special excursion.

This in turn led me to Historic Preservation Association Nahverkerhr Berlin e.V which in association with the Berlin Transport Company was running a special trip on May 20 from the Alexanderplatz, to Hohenschönhausen, which is now a museum but was once the headquarters of the East German Communist Ministry of State Security, the Stasi.

The Society and the transport company run regular trips once a month between April and November using historic trams.

This Sunday  “depending on the weather and technical conditions, the Reko train and the T24 with 2 sidecar are to be used”.  Now I have no idea whether Kathy’s tram was the Reko or T24, but someone will which which save me a search.

The trip apparently cost 6 € for adults and 3 € for children between 6 and 14 and on that sunny day in Berlin there was a choice of the 11 am trip or another at 2pm.

The Berlin tram network is one of the oldest, having been established in 1865 and is the third largest tram system in the world beaten only by Melbourne and St Petersburg.

Just leaving me to say, that Alexanderplatz is a major transport hub, is often referred to as Alex by Berliners* and one of the buildings close by is  the iconic Fernsehturm or TV Tower which is the second tallest building in the European Union.

Location; Berlin

Pictures; tram 63, in Berlin, May 20, 2018, from the collection of Kathy Lee

*Actually being pedantic, and not wanting to be told off, when Berliners refer to Alexanderplatz, as Alex, they generally are referring to a larger neighbourhood stretching from Mollstraße in the northeast to Spandauer Straße and the Rotes Rathaus in the southwest or so Wikipedia tells me

Heaton Park Tramway ……………. one to do

Now, I always mean to head up to the tram museum at Heaton Park, but never quite do.*

So, I was very pleased that Neil Simpson did just that at the weekend, posted the pictures he took on social media, and then shared them with me.

And that has doubled my resolve to zip over and enjoy the mix of vehicles, and memorabilia on offer.

The Museum is situated in the park and it is quite appropriate that I can do the journey by tram from Chorlton, changing at Victoria, which means there is no excuse.

At which point I could go into great detail about the museum, but their site does it so much better, in particular the story of how it started, and the collection.**

“Heaton Park Tramway is run by the Manchester Transport Museum Society.  

We have a variety of electric trams some in store and others operational and running on a stretch of track dating back to the original Manchester Tramway which used to operate into the park.  

Since opening in 1980, we have extended the line three times and run from Middleton Road to the boating lake.

The Manchester Transport Museum Society Ltd is a registered charity, set up in the early 1960s as the Manchester Transport Historical Collection. 

The Society’s aim is the preservation of documents and artifacts relating to public transport in the Manchester region.

The key project the group took on was the restoration of Manchester single deck California car 765. 

Having rescued the tram from the moors above Huddersfield, it was taken to the tramway museum at Crich in Derbyshire, where early restoration work took place. 

Further restoration was undertaken in Manchester and the restored car returned to Crich, operating for a couple of seasons.

The Society was keen to reopen the former tramway siding in Heaton Park which was still in existence under a layer of tarmac. 

The siding was originally built to allow special cars to operate from various parts of the city bringing Sunday School parties for days out in the extensive grounds of Heaton Hall. 

The aim was to operate 765 in its home city. Manchester City Council was approached during the 1970s and following negotiations a start was made on unearthing the existing tram rails". **

And for the rest I suggest you go to their site and then visit the museum.

Operating times:

Saturdays (4th May – 28th September 2019)

First Tram : 12:00

Last tram : 16:45

Sundays (17th February – 17th November)

First Tram : 12:00

Last tram : 16:45

"Please note that the tramway will not be operating during Park Life (8th June – 16 June)

Tramway operation is dependent on weather and personnel”.*

Location Heaton Park

Pictures; Heaton Park Tramway, 2019, from the collection of Neil Simpson 


*Heaton Park Tramway; http://hptramway.co.uk/

**About the Museum,
http://hptramway.co.uk/index.php/about/

The tram that takes you to the Quays ........ number 1

Now there is nothing better than the tram that takes you to the Quays, with that added bonus that you can change at Media City and go all the way to Eccles.

So here is the first of Andy’s new series.

This one I really like.

Location, on the way to Salford





Picture; tram over the water, 2017, from the collection of Andy Robertson

In praise of St Peter’s Square ............

How easy it is to forget what a place used to be like.

I am a fan of the new St Peter’s Square, partly because I like trams, but more because its transformation has created a large open space, which offers up good views of the Ref, and the Town Hall Extension, but is also just a pleasant place to sit.

So often town squares in Britain are wide windswept stretches of nothing, where litter gathers and pretty soon the weeds sprout up through the paving stones.

Not so St Peter’s Square, which remains a pleasant place.

And while there will be the detractors who preferred it when the Cenotaph stood opposite Central Ref, I remember it as a drab and uninviting spot, not enhanced by Elizabeth House which stood behind the small gardens.

Of course my memories only go back to 1969, but there will be no one who now remembers when the church stood on the old Cenotaph site, or the old tired looking buildings which Elizabeth House replaced.

Location; Manchester

Pictures, at the Metro stop, St Peter’s Square, 2017, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and St Peter’s Square, circa 1937, courtesy of David Harrop

Bowling along on the Berlin Tram

Now I will apologise at the outset for the title and move on, to the interesting stuff.

The Berlin network is one of the oldest, having been established in 1865 and is the third largest tram system in the world beaten only by Melbourne and St Petersburg.

It runs 22 lines covering 430 kilometres and boasts 800 stops.

All of which made it a perfect subject for Peter to paint.

Now there are plenty more fascinating facts but I shall leave them for another day.

That said there will be plenty out there who will have lots to say including Peter who has done the Berlin tram routes and is therefore a better authority than me.

Location; Berlin

Painting; the Berlin tram © Peter Topping, 2008

Web: www.paintingsfrompictures.co.uk

Facebook: Paintings from Pictures https://www.facebook.com/paintingsfrompictures

Watching the trams ...... for the Friends of Hardy Lane and maybe also Mauldeth Road West

Now for no other reason than I can, here are trams 3067 and 3068 on route to and from the Airport.

It was a Friday afternoon and I was sitting on that bench beside the car park of the Co-op.

There will be a few who mutter why two pictures of trams?

And the answer is that they will please the Friends of Hardy Lane, which in turn and set me off thinking about setting up a Friends of Mauldeth Road West.

On that we shall see.

For now, I will leave you with the two pictures, secure in the knowledge that Michael and Andy and others will weigh in with their on tram photos, well I hope so.

Location; Manchester


Pictures; trams 3067 and 3068 passing at Barlow Moor Road, 2018 from the collection of Andrew Simpson 

Of trams and pubs and bandstands ......... down at Crich Tramway Village

Now yesterday I was at Crich Tramway Village with LCC tram number 1622 which Dad would have used from time to travel from New Cross to Westminster via the Embankment.

Mother once told me of the time they went sight seeing which ended abruptly somewhere along the route when he could no no longer stick the tram journey.

But back to the trams of Matlock.

Strictly speaking it was Andy Robertson who was there, I just picked up on the pictures he sent over and wrote a story, but the images were too good to be left out so here are a few more..

The London tram will always be close to my heart but this one of a Leeds tram will stir the interest of some.

Andy got to ride on three Leeds trams and was drawn to the Red Lion pub which came from Stoke on Trent and was in danger of being demolished but was saved by the museum who rebuilt it and it now does the business of offering up a pint to the thirsty museum visitor.

And what I discovered later is that the old bandstand from Longford Park has also found its way there.

Picture; trams at the Crich Tramway Village, 2015, from the collection of Andy Robertson, 

* Crich Tramway Village, http://www.tramway.co.uk/