Towards the end of the 19th Century a number of Companies
were looking at a way of propelling their buses by traction
other than horses and after a number of failed attempts
things picked up with the formation of London United
Tramways Co. Ltd which bought up the assets of the
West Metropolitan Tramways Company in 1894.
Under the leadership of James Clifton Robinson progress was fast once a
bill was passed in 1894 to allow electric traction. By the
turn of the Century electric traction held sway. The next
development was to move on to trolleybuses as this removed
the cost of maintaining track and an act passed in 1930 made
this possible. Trolleybuses gradually took over more routes
with the result that the last London tram was withdrawn in
July 1952. However, in the end, the trolleybuses could not
compete with motor buses and by May 1962 all had been
replaced by Routemaster buses.
As far as collecting goes there are a
number of fields including bus items such as destination
blinds, type plates and radiator emblems, enamel signs such
as timetable header plates, and plenty of paperwork. A few
of these items are pictured below.
As with underground items there are a large selection of
badges to pursue that go right back to the earliest
Companies.
This subject is rather outside the remit of Railwayana
Collecting so if you want to pursue it further there are a
number of websites covering this subject in much greater
detail. If you run such a website I would be happy to put a
link here.
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