London Transport

Trolleybus

In 1959 London Transport started a three year process of abandoning the world's largest trolleybus system in favour of the inferior Routemaster bus. It was to be the death knell for trolleybuses in Britain. Some of us fought a rear guard action pointing out that it was foolish to become dependent on a fuel source imported from potentially unstable parts of the world (memories of the Suez crisis of 1956 were still fresh in our minds) and that more diesel buses would only add to the pollution of our city streets (London still suffered from "pea soupers" in those days). We were dismissed as cranks. Progress was the Routemaster. Well fifty ears on , although the RM served London faithfully for much of that time, it can now be seen as a foolish decision to abandon such a superior mode of transport for our capital and other city streets. Although the trolleybus will not return to British streets, there is a distinct possibility that battery buses will become a feature of public transport in the not too distant future.

A line up of trolleybuses, headed by K class 1077, an integral construction vehicle built by Leyland in 1938, in Isleworth Depot (1962)

Fulwell depot, still with tram tracks in the yard, 31 years after trams were withdrawn (1961)

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