Walsall Trolleybuses

One of my favourite trolleybus systems was Walsall. Routes fanned out from the bus station (except for the route to Wolverhampton). There was a variety of vehicles, many secondhand, and those designed by the Transport department manager Mr Edgley-Cox were distincly original. Notable was the "ugly" vehciles with double reduction rear axles that produced a distinctive whine. The other aspect of Walsall that made phtography interesting was the landscape. New and old hosung with areas of desolation in between.

In the summer of 1968 I spent six weeks as a conductor on the trolleys. My South London accent would amuse the Black Country folk. They were an insualr lot, and few had travelled beyond Wolverhampton or Birmingham. However I quickly warmed to them and they certainly had a well developed sense of humour.

Basically there were three routes between the bus station and Bloxwich. A spare vehicle and crew were rostered at the bus ststation. If an incoming service was late and the inspector had a queue waiting he would summinds the spare out to cover. The incoming late service would stand at the bus stationcovering until the spare returned. When we were the lat arrival we always hoped there would no more so that we could grab a 30 minute break before the spare returned. A few years later I worked with George Oliver who had been Walsall's scheduels man that devised this method of despatching trolleys on time from the bus station.

Photos taken 1968-1971

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