This is a smashing little film ! I remember them at Woolwich (South) 1950 s ! Terminus outside Granada & Odeon cinema's , changing overhead pick-ups with long bamboo pole to turn around ! Many were broken up at Charlton ,Penhall Road I think ,us kids played on them there ! I can just remember riding on Trams too, Beresford Square , Woolwich ! Thank you for this ! PS, the last Trolley busses I remember were in Maidstone ,Kent 1960 s !
😊👍 good memories. I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading that last trolley bus system to close was at Teeside, somewhere up north. It might be around 1970 that they closed.
From the age of 10 in 1968 I was a red-rover ticket travelling bus enthusiast in love with RMs and RTs mainly travelling from our home in Teddington all over London and I remember one Sunday afternoon sneaking into nearby Fulwell depot to take down bus numbers in my exercise book and being shocked at the sight of several shiny Trolley busses parked up in the corner of the garage appearing strangely futuristic to my young eyes as I had never seen one before (bear in mind this was a good 6 years after the last one had rolled out of that very garage!)
Rory Patrick Campbell That would have been a great surprise finding those trolleybuses. Did you happen to record their numbers? Some may today be in museums. As for recording Loco and bus numbers, that seems to be purely a British phenomenon as I have never heard of fans doing that in any other country.
That brings back some memories! We lived in London from 1957 to 1959 (Boston Manor, Brentford). We travelled by trolly bus a lot, route 655 rings a distant bell in my memory. The trolly poles would come off the wires occasionally and the conductor would put them back on with a long pole. The Routemasters were brand new at the time and it was quite exciting to get on them as a young kid. They seemed so clean and modern. I don’t know if you remember the silver trains on the London Underground at the time, they were brand new around 1958 (I think) and it was quite exciting to see one arrive instead of the red ones.
tressteleg1 ~ Whoops! Missed that part. I did watch the whole video though. Bought back so many memories with the cars, trucks, motorbikes, shops, and the way people were.
I understood that the arrival of Routemasters caused the trolleybuses to finish. There was nowhere else for the new Routemasters to go as there were plenty of good diesel buses available and as so much money had been spent on producing the Routemasters they had to go somewhere and that was the trolleybus routes.
@@John2E0GTU According to transport fans I met on visits to the UK a few decades ago, the biggest killer of trolleybuses nationwide was great the increased electricity prices. It became cheaper to run diesel buses. Quite possibly London transport decided it was simpler not to have the complication of specialist drivers just for trolley buses.
This is the first time I've seen your film it is superb. Thanks for the upload. Can I ask have you or any of your friends any footage of Poplar PR Depot and it's trolleybuses? I worked at Poplar from 1971 till garage closure in November 1985 on the engineering side. I was very fortunate to work with many old trolleybus men. The new fleet of Routemaster buses, swept the old trolleys away in 1959. Thanks again.👍
Unfortunately there is no more. You have seen all the movies that Roy took in London. However a London trolley bus did some tours in other cities so perhaps this will interest you in a little. London Trolleybus 260 On Tour Reading & Bournemouth th-cam.com/video/hZG17LHcxpw/w-d-xo.html
My late husband worked out of Poplar garage late sixties/early seventies, started off as a ‘clippy’ . Then became a driver . Only white guy in the cricket team.
@@Laura55sere Hi all the engineering and platform staff , were a great bunch of people at PR Poplar garage. I always got on with the drivers, and helped them whenever I could. In their turn they would always go out of their way to help me when bringing defective buses back to PR. I was late turn running shift, on that last run in on the night the garage closed down. 1985. Hard to believe this was 36 years ago. I'm certain I would have known your hubby. Bless them all. Great times, and a great garage to work in. Sadly I believe it will be demolished very soon. However they will never demolish our memories. Kind regards Jonnie. Ex Poplar bus mechanic . xx
What a wonderful film - it is surprising how little film was taken of these great vehicles. The system should never have been abandoned, and had it survived, a number of provincial systems would have carried on. Without London Transport's huge system it became difficult and expensive to obtain the necessary spares and all the other equipment that trolleybuses require.
@@tressteleg1 London Transport undertook extensive research into costs of diesel against electric power very soon after WW2, as the south London trams urgently required replacement. It was a very close thing and there is some suspicion that the new Chairman of London Transport was somewhat biased against trolleybuses. One factor against them was the wartime experience where, obviously, trolleybuses could not divert from fixed routes as easily as diesel buses. With the benefit of hindsight of course, that was a problem that never arose again - in fact, during the Suez Crisis, trolleybuses came into their own, increasing services while motor bus schedules were reduced. Regarding electricity costs, LT generated its' own power so, to a large degree, this was not a huge problem. As we have seen of course, all fuel prices became very volatile .It is a pity that environmental considerations were not taken into account !
ernest jupp It’s impossible to remember all the details spoken to me 30 years ago, but the impression I had was that it was all the trolleybuses that survived after the London closure that were phased out due to high power prices. If you live in the UK, you can look into that much more easily than me.
@@tressteleg1 the main issue was that companies lost the electric generation power plants, and they needed to purchase it at high prices. The Bradford closure, less than one year before the first oil crisis was a nonsense.
@@marcelomarcos3568 Yes, very shortsighted, at least with the benefit of hindsight. Nationalisation of power generation certainly had its drawbacks. Something similar happened in Victoria in the 1930s but in that situation the state electricity commission inherited the three tramways which were operated by the power generators. It was 1972 before the last of the three closed.
Fascinating stuff brilliant upload. Well I'm amazed i feel ashamed I knew nothing about Trolleybuses, I was born in 1971 I thought we only used Trams and Routemasters. There might of been a time when Routemasters Trams and Trolleybuses were on our streets.
As the Diddler trolleybuses date from the 1930s, they were in operation at the same time as the trams I think that generally it was the trolleybuses that replaced the trams so they would not often have been seen together in any location. I am certain that Google would tell you the year that Route Masters first appeared and I suspect that this was before the last London tram around 1951 so all three probably existed at the same time but probably nowhere did the three meet but that is something for you to research 😊
JAHNO71 Let us know what you find. The TBs replaced trams in North London first. The war stopped Southside tram scrapping. But when that continued late 1940s I think diesel buses took over.
You can still take a trolley bus ride in a British museum. The black country museum near Birmingham used to have a long street ride but I think that closed and now has a short track in the museum. The same applies at Sandstoft as well as East Anglia Transport museum, but all three circuits are rather small unfortunately.
Trams were withdrawn in London, July 1952. Trolleybus’s ran til about 1960 in West London. The first Routemaster appeared in 1956. So trolleybus’s and Routemasters ran together for just a couple of years after the Routemaster protertypes. But never trams did run with them.
I thought that maybe a Londoner would answer that for you. I suspect that the trolley buses were like trams in those days - their only power supply was from the overhead wires. If you were to contact the East Anglia Transport Museum they may be able to tell you as they have at least one London TB and generally in working order.
@@tressteleg1 Yes, they did have batteries to move the bus a short distance from the wires, but not always in a good state of charge from the bus system.. It is interesting that modern electric battery buses made by Optare and BYD, (Build Your Dreams, yes, that really is what it stands for.) need to be returned to the garage/depot to be put on charge when their battery percentage is below 30 , or else they might fail in service. There have been experiments with induction loop charging at Canning Town Station. My view is that the only solution is a hybrid, either a series hybrid, where an engine drives a generator which charges batteries which power a traction motor, an idea going back to Tilling Stevens petrol electric over 100 years ago, but without the batteries, or a parallel hybrid. like the Volvo B5, where normally the engine will be off, the bus starts on electric motor until about 6 mph or so, then the diesel drags in, if it is set up right, it is seamless, but often wrong, and gives a pause which annoys following traffic. Quite a satisfying bus too drive however, except for hills, the 5 in B5 meaning 5 litre engine.
Thanks for the local knowledge. Unfortunately looking after batteries was probably a low priority job which was fine until the batteries were actually needed to move the vehicle and probably only on rare occasions. I know what BYD stands for as a friend has one of their electric cars. For 8 years I have had a Mitsubishi outlander PHEV. With use a few times a week, for the trips I usually make, petrol is rarely needed. In fact I have trouble using 15 L per three months which the vehicle demands. It is like your first option - like a diesel electric locomotive with batteries which do the lion’s share of the work, except on long journeys. The Volvo model which you describe sounds like the Prius which as far as I am concerned he’s nothing but a weak joke and false pretences. At the best it is a minor electric assist on moving off from a start. 99% of the time it is no more than a petrol car.
I love Trolleybus so much I even made a video about them Science Thursday Ep24 (Trolleybus Explained) th-cam.com/video/cgbLjkKx0C8/w-d-xo.html They came too early and people did not understand what they where canceling , OIL price was low back then so in short term thinking people just axed it and then as oil prices goes up boom bus ticket prices goes up and not to mention Trolleybus had a service life of 25 years where bus can only go 15 (Too many moving parts ) lets just not go into the noise & air pollution aspect of it
Thanks. I’ll look at the link when I get a chance. I suppose you heard of the scandalous closure of the Wellington NZ system not too long ago. All the overhead had just been replaced over 5 years. The transport department hated the TBs and had been dying to get rid of them for years. The operators used any excuse to run diesels instead. NZ, a country with no oil but plenty of hydro and geothermal electricity. Nuts!
@@tressteleg1 they said it is expensive to maintain overhead wires I was like since when did oil infrastructure is super easy or CHEAP to maintain . Short term thinking at its best + pollution
With TBs I think it was considered necessary to have the tower wagon crew on duty just in case of a disaster. But if there is a tramway, they could care for both. Or tower crew could do other jobs in the depot in ‘free’ time. Obviously most companies disagree with us. Diesel fumes seem not to be worth worrying about. Stupid!
I think that there are still plenty in the former USSR, but not a lot elsewhere. I may even have small snippets from places like Potsdam, Toronto Edmonton and a few others maybe but trams were always the target. Did you see the other TB videos by Roy Hubble on my TH-cam?
Growing up in London in the late 50s I loved the trolleybuses, they finished in my part of London in April 61. All over the UK the flavour of the decade was get rid of them and so the last system which was also the very first one finished in 1972,is Bradford 1911 to 1972. 72xwas the year I emigrated to Sydney. Sydney trolleybuses went in 59 and trams in 61, Melbourne was silly enough to keep there trams. So why in the past 20 odd years is now expensive trams the flavour of the month????? and why no trolleybuses??? I know for a fact that Volvo are going to be out of diesel engines very soon and they are introducing electric buses in Melbourne. In all for trams and trolleybuses, I don't think batteries are really the way ahead although they do have there uses. Sadly Wellington who had a modern fleet of trolleybuses got rid of theirs in 2017. Why I wonder are they so practical in Europe and not here or indeed the UK.. I was in San Francisco din 2019 and the trolleybuses make short work of the steep hills and with no sound or fumes
From what London fans told me years ago, a large increase in electricity prices while oil prices were modest was a major factor in all of Britain’s trolley bus systems closing. As for Melbourne being silly, I think not. Every year a dozen or so cities around the world, which once abandoned trams, have gone back to them. Major factor is that each vehicle can carry a much larger capacity than any type of bus and for busier systems, two or more can be coupled together to really shift the crowds with just one driver. By comparison, as much as I like trolleybuses, the opening of a new trolleybus system is a rare event while I was shocked to hear not so long ago that the vast Moscow trolley bus network is gone. While I doubt the wisdom of carting tons of batteries around every day, that seems to be the way the world is going.
@@tressteleg1 one BIG difference using Melbourne trams travel at a reasonable speed, but in Sydney it's flashing Hazzard lights and 10 kph On one word. STUPID
The last time I checked it was 20 km/h along George Street. And Bourke Street Mall, the closest equivalent in Melbourne has a speed limit of 10 km/h. A competent driver keeps an on what is in front of him and adjust the speed according to whether there are inattentive pedestrians likely to walk in front of the tram without seeing it, or whether the street is clear for some distance away from the tramline ahead. Drivers are no longer allowed to use their initiative for anything. Nevertheless the management in Sydney seems to be largely inept and over-governed by unnecessary signals and other Railway style clutter.
@@tressteleg1 I used to drive for Hills us from Rouse Hill into Lee's Street, the amount of stupid pedestrians is stunning, they will cross a road without looking left or right because the phone is GOD. Personally I think it should be an offense to do so,you are not permitted to drive and even hold a phone, yet you can be so consumed by it that you bump into pedestrians and walk Infront of road vehicles. It's nice to see trams back and I think when they constructed the M2 they should have had a team corridor. I. went on the Newcastle team,. I think they should have. Wired it or used APS
@@tressteleg1 The irony is that just after the last trolleybus system closed in the UK the cost of imported diesel shot up with the 1974 oil crisis. Cost of locally produced electricity (admittedly mainly from coal) was far cheaper. If the oil crisis had happened 10 years earlier some systems may have survived.
British fans told me it was the rapidly increasing price of electricity that saw the end of many trolley bus systems. But that does not mean that the oil-price did not get even dearer. Unfortunately for whatever reason, trolleybuses have been losing favour for years. I was astonished that Moscow, possibly the world’s biggest trolley bus system, closed its last line last year.
@@tressteleg1 Russian here, there was pretty much no reason other than the mayor's whim. Some people joke that this is because the wires were stopping the mayor from landing his helicopter in the city center.
Thanks for your local input! Unfortunately town mayors often have far too much power, and in this case your mayor could well have had mates in the oil industry who would benefit from diesel being used instead of electricity. While I would not be surprised if other TB systems closed because of a mayor, quite a few tramways around the world were closed by mayors only in power for a few short years in a town’s history. They can destroy an asset which would cost too much to put back in again.
Unfortunately any chance of trolleybuses coming back has largely been blown away by the emergence of battery-powered buses which avoid the need for “unsightly overhead wires“.
No, you missed my point. I would love to see trolley buses and wires everywhere, but ’everyone’ wants ‘sexy new wire free battery buses’. This subject was recently discussed at length on Trams Down Under. Google that, then go to Messages, then go back about a week.
This is a smashing little film ! I remember them at Woolwich (South) 1950 s ! Terminus outside Granada & Odeon cinema's , changing overhead pick-ups with long bamboo pole to turn around ! Many were broken up at Charlton ,Penhall Road I think ,us kids played on them there ! I can just remember riding on Trams too, Beresford Square , Woolwich ! Thank you for this ! PS, the last Trolley busses I remember were in Maidstone ,Kent 1960 s !
😊👍 good memories. I could be wrong, but I think I remember reading that last trolley bus system to close was at Teeside, somewhere up north. It might be around 1970 that they closed.
Lovely short history film. Thanks for sharing.
👍
An exelent trip back in history. I was born in '64, never seen a trolly bus. Thanks for an informative upload
I’m pleased that this filled a gap for you.
From the age of 10 in 1968 I was a red-rover ticket travelling bus enthusiast in love with RMs and RTs mainly travelling from our home in Teddington all over London and I remember one Sunday afternoon sneaking into nearby Fulwell depot to take down bus numbers in my exercise book and being shocked at the sight of several shiny Trolley busses parked up in the corner of the garage appearing strangely futuristic to my young eyes as I had never seen one before (bear in mind this was a good 6 years after the last one had rolled out of that very garage!)
Rory Patrick Campbell That would have been a great surprise finding those trolleybuses. Did you happen to record their numbers? Some may today be in museums. As for recording Loco and bus numbers, that seems to be purely a British phenomenon as I have never heard of fans doing that in any other country.
A lovely look back at the trolley buses, thank you!
😊👍
That brings back some memories! We lived in London from 1957 to 1959 (Boston Manor, Brentford). We travelled by trolly bus a lot, route 655 rings a distant bell in my memory. The trolly poles would come off the wires occasionally and the conductor would put them back on with a long pole.
The Routemasters were brand new at the time and it was quite exciting to get on them as a young kid. They seemed so clean and modern.
I don’t know if you remember the silver trains on the London Underground at the time, they were brand new around 1958 (I think) and it was quite exciting to see one arrive instead of the red ones.
Thanks for your memories. My first trip to London was in 1975.
tressteleg1 ~ Ah ok. I thought it was you who did the filming. I guess you’re doing the voice-over?
If you watch the start of the video you will see that the cameraman and commentator was Roy Hubble, unfortunately no longer with us.
tressteleg1 ~ Whoops! Missed that part. I did watch the whole video though. Bought back so many memories with the cars, trucks, motorbikes, shops, and the way people were.
I understood that the arrival of Routemasters caused the trolleybuses to finish. There was nowhere else for the new Routemasters to go as there were plenty of good diesel buses available and as so much money had been spent on producing the Routemasters they had to go somewhere and that was the trolleybus routes.
@@John2E0GTU According to transport fans I met on visits to the UK a few decades ago, the biggest killer of trolleybuses nationwide was great the increased electricity prices. It became cheaper to run diesel buses. Quite possibly London transport decided it was simpler not to have the complication of specialist drivers just for trolley buses.
This is the first time I've seen your film it is superb. Thanks for the upload. Can I ask have you or any of your friends any footage of Poplar PR Depot and it's trolleybuses? I worked at Poplar from 1971 till garage closure in November 1985 on the engineering side. I was very fortunate to work with many old trolleybus men. The new fleet of Routemaster buses, swept the old trolleys away in 1959. Thanks again.👍
Unfortunately there is no more. You have seen all the movies that Roy took in London. However a London trolley bus did some tours in other cities so perhaps this will interest you in a little. London Trolleybus 260 On Tour Reading & Bournemouth th-cam.com/video/hZG17LHcxpw/w-d-xo.html
@@tressteleg1 Many thanks.👍
My late husband worked out of Poplar garage late sixties/early seventies, started off as a ‘clippy’ . Then became a driver . Only white guy in the cricket team.
@@Laura55sere Hi all the engineering and platform staff , were a great bunch of people at PR Poplar garage. I always got on with the drivers, and helped them whenever I could. In their turn they would always go out of their way to help me when bringing defective buses back to PR.
I was late turn running shift, on that last run in on the night the garage closed down. 1985. Hard to believe this was 36 years ago. I'm certain I would have known your hubby. Bless them all. Great times, and a great garage to work in. Sadly I believe it will be demolished very soon. However they will never demolish our memories. Kind regards Jonnie. Ex Poplar bus mechanic . xx
What a wonderful film - it is surprising how little film was taken of these great vehicles. The system should never have been abandoned, and had it survived, a number of provincial systems would have carried on. Without London Transport's huge system it became difficult and expensive to obtain the necessary spares and all the other equipment that trolleybuses require.
From what British fans told me in the past, the price of electricity went up a lot and it was cheaper to run diesel buses.
@@tressteleg1 London Transport undertook extensive research into costs of diesel against electric power very soon after WW2, as the south London trams urgently required replacement. It was a very close thing and there is some suspicion that the new Chairman of London Transport was somewhat biased against trolleybuses. One factor against them was the wartime experience where, obviously, trolleybuses could not divert from fixed routes as easily as diesel buses. With the benefit of hindsight of course, that was a problem that never arose again - in fact, during the Suez Crisis, trolleybuses came into their own, increasing services while motor bus schedules were reduced. Regarding electricity costs, LT generated its' own power so, to a large degree, this was not a huge problem. As we have seen of course, all fuel prices became very volatile .It is a pity that environmental considerations were not taken into account !
ernest jupp It’s impossible to remember all the details spoken to me 30 years ago, but the impression I had was that it was all the trolleybuses that survived after the London closure that were phased out due to high power prices. If you live in the UK, you can look into that much more easily than me.
@@tressteleg1 the main issue was that companies lost the electric generation power plants, and they needed to purchase it at high prices. The Bradford closure, less than one year before the first oil crisis was a nonsense.
@@marcelomarcos3568 Yes, very shortsighted, at least with the benefit of hindsight. Nationalisation of power generation certainly had its drawbacks. Something similar happened in Victoria in the 1930s but in that situation the state electricity commission inherited the three tramways which were operated by the power generators. It was 1972 before the last of the three closed.
6:20 wow i remember the old c&a shop in kingston town centre...
😊👍
What a wonderful historical record!
😊👍
Fascinating stuff brilliant upload. Well I'm amazed i feel ashamed I knew nothing about Trolleybuses, I was born in 1971 I thought we only used Trams and Routemasters. There might of been a time when Routemasters Trams and Trolleybuses were on our streets.
As the Diddler trolleybuses date from the 1930s, they were in operation at the same time as the trams I think that generally it was the trolleybuses that replaced the trams so they would not often have been seen together in any location. I am certain that Google would tell you the year that Route Masters first appeared and I suspect that this was before the last London tram around 1951 so all three probably existed at the same time but probably nowhere did the three meet but that is something for you to research 😊
@@tressteleg1 Thanks very much for your info much appreciated I will be researching.
JAHNO71 Let us know what you find. The TBs replaced trams in North London first. The war stopped Southside tram scrapping. But when that continued late 1940s I think diesel buses took over.
You can still take a trolley bus ride in a British museum. The black country museum near Birmingham used to have a long street ride but I think that closed and now has a short track in the museum. The same applies at Sandstoft as well as East Anglia Transport museum, but all three circuits are rather small unfortunately.
Trams were withdrawn in London, July 1952. Trolleybus’s ran til about 1960 in West London. The first Routemaster appeared in 1956. So trolleybus’s and Routemasters ran together for just a couple of years after the Routemaster protertypes. But never trams did run with them.
As a little kid rode on the 601 and 605 all the time
I guess this brought back a few memories 😊
Interesting video Richard!
😊👍
Hi there, Did the trolley buses have battery's so they could operate in hooked from the system?
I thought that maybe a Londoner would answer that for you.
I suspect that the trolley buses were like trams in those days - their only power supply was from the overhead wires.
If you were to contact the East Anglia Transport Museum they may be able to tell you as they have at least one London TB and generally in working order.
not yet - such vehicles were only mass produced around the 80s
@@warmike OK
@@tressteleg1 Yes, they did have batteries to move the bus a short distance from the wires, but not always in a good state of charge from the bus system.. It is interesting that modern electric battery buses made by Optare and BYD, (Build Your Dreams, yes, that really is what it stands for.) need to be returned to the garage/depot to be put on charge when their battery percentage is below 30 , or else they might fail in service. There have been experiments with induction loop charging at Canning Town Station.
My view is that the only solution is a hybrid, either a series hybrid, where an engine drives a generator which charges batteries which power a traction motor, an idea going back to Tilling Stevens petrol electric over 100 years ago, but without the batteries, or a parallel hybrid. like the Volvo B5, where normally the engine will be off, the bus starts on electric motor until about 6 mph or so, then the diesel drags in, if it is set up right, it is seamless, but often wrong, and gives a pause which annoys following traffic. Quite a satisfying bus too drive however, except for hills, the 5 in B5 meaning 5 litre engine.
Thanks for the local knowledge. Unfortunately looking after batteries was probably a low priority job which was fine until the batteries were actually needed to move the vehicle and probably only on rare occasions. I know what BYD stands for as a friend has one of their electric cars.
For 8 years I have had a Mitsubishi outlander PHEV. With use a few times a week, for the trips I usually make, petrol is rarely needed. In fact I have trouble using 15 L per three months which the vehicle demands. It is like your first option - like a diesel electric locomotive with batteries which do the lion’s share of the work, except on long journeys. The Volvo model which you describe sounds like the Prius which as far as I am concerned he’s nothing but a weak joke and false pretences. At the best it is a minor electric assist on moving off from a start. 99% of the time it is no more than a petrol car.
I love Trolleybus so much I even made a video about them
Science Thursday Ep24 (Trolleybus Explained)
th-cam.com/video/cgbLjkKx0C8/w-d-xo.html
They came too early and people did not understand what they where canceling , OIL price was low back then so in short term thinking people just axed it and then as oil prices goes up boom bus ticket prices goes up and not to mention Trolleybus had a service life of 25 years where bus can only go 15 (Too many moving parts ) lets just not go into the noise & air pollution aspect of it
Thanks. I’ll look at the link when I get a chance. I suppose you heard of the scandalous closure of the Wellington NZ system not too long ago. All the overhead had just been replaced over 5 years. The transport department hated the TBs and had been dying to get rid of them for years. The operators used any excuse to run diesels instead. NZ, a country with no oil but plenty of hydro and geothermal electricity. Nuts!
@@tressteleg1 they said it is expensive to maintain overhead wires I was like since when did oil infrastructure is super easy or CHEAP to maintain . Short term thinking at its best + pollution
With TBs I think it was considered necessary to have the tower wagon crew on duty just in case of a disaster. But if there is a tramway, they could care for both. Or tower crew could do other jobs in the depot in ‘free’ time. Obviously most companies disagree with us. Diesel fumes seem not to be worth worrying about. Stupid!
@@tressteleg1 just watch the video i went in the deep end about all this 600+ places had trolley bus but now only few places left
I think that there are still plenty in the former USSR, but not a lot elsewhere. I may even have small snippets from places like Potsdam, Toronto Edmonton and a few others maybe but trams were always the target. Did you see the other TB videos by Roy Hubble on my TH-cam?
Growing up in London in the late 50s I loved the trolleybuses, they finished in my part of London in April 61.
All over the UK the flavour of the decade was get rid of them and so the last system which was also the very first one finished in 1972,is Bradford 1911 to 1972.
72xwas the year I emigrated to Sydney.
Sydney trolleybuses went in 59 and trams in 61, Melbourne was silly enough to keep there trams.
So why in the past 20 odd years is now expensive trams the flavour of the month????? and why no trolleybuses???
I know for a fact that Volvo are going to be out of diesel engines very soon and they are introducing electric buses in Melbourne.
In all for trams and trolleybuses, I don't think batteries are really the way ahead although they do have there uses.
Sadly Wellington who had a modern fleet of trolleybuses got rid of theirs in 2017.
Why I wonder are they so practical in Europe and not here or indeed the UK..
I was in San Francisco din 2019 and the trolleybuses make short work of the steep hills and with no sound or fumes
From what London fans told me years ago, a large increase in electricity prices while oil prices were modest was a major factor in all of Britain’s trolley bus systems closing. As for Melbourne being silly, I think not. Every year a dozen or so cities around the world, which once abandoned trams, have gone back to them. Major factor is that each vehicle can carry a much larger capacity than any type of bus and for busier systems, two or more can be coupled together to really shift the crowds with just one driver. By comparison, as much as I like trolleybuses, the opening of a new trolleybus system is a rare event while I was shocked to hear not so long ago that the vast Moscow trolley bus network is gone. While I doubt the wisdom of carting tons of batteries around every day, that seems to be the way the world is going.
@@tressteleg1 silly was tongue in cheek.
Melbourne had the good sense to keep its trams
@@tressteleg1 one BIG difference using Melbourne trams travel at a reasonable speed, but in Sydney it's flashing Hazzard lights and 10 kph
On one word. STUPID
The last time I checked it was 20 km/h along George Street. And Bourke Street Mall, the closest equivalent in Melbourne has a speed limit of 10 km/h. A competent driver keeps an on what is in front of him and adjust the speed according to whether there are inattentive pedestrians likely to walk in front of the tram without seeing it, or whether the street is clear for some distance away from the tramline ahead. Drivers are no longer allowed to use their initiative for anything. Nevertheless the management in Sydney seems to be largely inept and over-governed by unnecessary signals and other Railway style clutter.
@@tressteleg1 I used to drive for Hills us from Rouse Hill into Lee's Street, the amount of stupid pedestrians is stunning, they will cross a road without looking left or right because the phone is GOD.
Personally I think it should be an offense to do so,you are not permitted to drive and even hold a phone, yet you can be so consumed by it that you bump into pedestrians and walk Infront of road vehicles.
It's nice to see trams back and I think when they constructed the M2 they should have had a team corridor.
I. went on the Newcastle team,. I think they should have. Wired it or used APS
Why did they have to go?
Mr Bro I suspect that London transport management simply loved diesel buses and thought it too much bother looking after the overhead wires.
@@tressteleg1 The irony is that just after the last trolleybus system closed in the UK the cost of imported diesel shot up with the 1974 oil crisis. Cost of locally produced electricity (admittedly mainly from coal) was far cheaper. If the oil crisis had happened 10 years earlier some systems may have survived.
British fans told me it was the rapidly increasing price of electricity that saw the end of many trolley bus systems. But that does not mean that the oil-price did not get even dearer. Unfortunately for whatever reason, trolleybuses have been losing favour for years. I was astonished that Moscow, possibly the world’s biggest trolley bus system, closed its last line last year.
@@tressteleg1 Russian here, there was pretty much no reason other than the mayor's whim. Some people joke that this is because the wires were stopping the mayor from landing his helicopter in the city center.
Thanks for your local input! Unfortunately town mayors often have far too much power, and in this case your mayor could well have had mates in the oil industry who would benefit from diesel being used instead of electricity.
While I would not be surprised if other TB systems closed because of a mayor, quite a few tramways around the world were closed by mayors only in power for a few short years in a town’s history. They can destroy an asset which would cost too much to put back in again.
Interesting.
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Truth is these are what should be on the roads again...not trams or combustion powered buses
Unfortunately any chance of trolleybuses coming back has largely been blown away by the emergence of battery-powered buses which avoid the need for “unsightly overhead wires“.
@@tressteleg1 your missing the point....trolley buses are environmentally....much cleaner than battery buses....and the wires are hardly unsightly
No, you missed my point. I would love to see trolley buses and wires everywhere, but ’everyone’ wants ‘sexy new wire free battery buses’.
This subject was recently discussed at length on Trams Down Under. Google that, then go to Messages, then go back about a week.
Good old London❗☝️🙂👌👏🚍🚍🚍
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Great (tongue in the mouth perhaps) commentary, but a delicgt nevertheless...
Well, that was Roy’s normal voice. The UK has hundreds if not thousands of different accents both geographic and social.