Transport pro bono publico (1)

My nostalgia for the Leeds tram network of the 1950s

OK, this one is really eccentric, but as a 13-year old school boy I travelled on the very last Leeds City Transport service tram, November 7, 1959, and still have the souvenir tickets (well the 1d, 2d and 3d ones ‘cos the pocket money did not extend to the 4d, 5d and 6d) to prove it!

Leeds had a superb network of tram routes, many operating on dedicated or ‘reserved’ tracks. They were a huge asset to the city and the quality and innovation shown by the Tramways Department of Leeds City Transport was renowned world-wide, under several General Managers. Even while the politicians were undermining the system’s future, the Department was laying new tracks and designing new, state of-the-then-art, tramcars.

But despite their even-to-a-13-year-old-obvious benefits, and the advanced plans for an underground network in the city centre developed in the early-1940s, the system was rapidly run down and hastily abandoned in the mid-1950s, largely for political reasons, the council being eager to make was for the fast rising motor car. The last section of new route was opened in 1949, (although some re modelling continued into the 1950s), only in 1951 did the number of Leeds buses first exceed the number of trams, and the last brand new tram to enter service, No.602, (seen top left, now preserved at the National Tramway Museum), did so on June 1, 1953: it, and fellow single deckers 600 and 601 lasted just over four years. Also at Crich is the last Leeds tram in service, Horsfield Car No.180, seen below.

How ironic, then, that only in late-2005 did the government finally put the nail in the city’s 1990-born scheme to bring trams back to the streets, after a reported £40 million had been spent on studies and initial works. I have to opine that that scheme was not properly thought through, again it seemed more political (a ’Leeds City’ scheme to rival Manchester’s and Sheffield’s new trams rather than one catering for the needs of the wider city region) than practicable, but had the city fathers not worked so hard to kill the trams in the mid-50s, they would surely now have had a world-class network in (continuous) operation for far less than the 21st century 3-line scheme would have cost. This would have been to the immense benefit of its citizens as they today struggle to commute or shop in the city where the motor car still causes so many headaches and the public transport is, in many places, diabolically bad. But is that the result of political meddling or political policies?

Picture right: despite the rapid and imminent demise of the network, in early 1959 Leeds City Transport arranged a number of open days at Swinegate depot, where I (hooped school cap) learned a lot, and had the unusual opportunity of a tour of the still-busy depot!!

There are several good books describing or illustrating the system’s history and destruction, but none better than Jim Soper’s magnum opus. “Leeds Transport" (Leeds Transport Historical Society) in four volumes.

And of course there is a connection between my love of trams and also of the Jagiuar aircraft project. Many Leeds trams of the early 1900s, were built by Dick, Kerr (that is Dick comma Kerr, two great men, not one man, Richard Kerr!!), at their Starnd Road works in Preston, the very same works I spent a short time in during my BAC apprenticeship and where the rear halves of all Jaguars were built.... and many 100s of other aircraftt too. The aircraft-building side of Strand Road, like so much of Britain's aerospace capability, was demolished some years ago......