Trams - Great Britain: Books - History and Types (1/2)

Trams: An Illustrated Anthology

Evocative, entertaining, nostalgic and informative; Trams is a fascinating anthology of some of the best stories and descriptive articles written about a vehicle that was once queen of the road.
The book covers many aspects of the tramcar, in the days of horse, steam, cable and electric power. Stories range from amusing incidents to childhood recollections and from trams that put out to sea to those that were bombed in the Blitz.

Including extracts by well known writers (such as Arnold Bennett, D.H. Lawrence and L.A.G. Strong), entertainers (such as Jimmy Saville), poets, journalists, tramway employees, passengers and enthusiasts, this book presents a comprehensive and multi-faceted view of the tramways.
With the addition of more than 200 photographs, most in colour, "Trams: An Illustrated Anthology" shows there is much more to trams than wood and steel.

Information

Rails in the Road - A History of Tramways in Britain and Ireland

There have been passenger tramways in Britain for 150 years, but it is a rollercoaster story of rise, decline and a steady return. Trams have come and gone, been loved and hated, popular and derided.
Horse trams, introduced from the USA in the 1860s, were the first cheap form of public transport on city streets. Electric systems were developed in nearly every urban area from the 1890s and revolutionised town travel in the Edwardian era.

A century ago, trams were at their peak, used by everyone all over the country and a mark of civic pride in towns and cities from Dover to Dublin. But by the 1930s they were in decline and giving way to cheaper and more flexible buses and trolleybuses.
By the 1950s all the major systems were being replaced. London's last tram ran in 1952 and ten years later Glasgow, the city most firmly linked with trams, closed its network down. Only Blackpool, famous for its decorated cars, kept a public service running and trams seemed destined only for scrapyards and museums.

A gradual renaissance took place from the 1980s, with growing interest in what are now described as light rail systems in Europe and North America.
In the UK and Ireland modern trams were on the streets of Manchester from 1992, followed successively by Sheffield, Croydon, the West Midlands, Nottingham, Dublin and Edinburgh (2014). Trams are now set to be a familiar and significant feature of twenty-first century urban life, with more development on the way.

This book details the history of tramways in Britain and Ireland.

Information

Regional Tramways - Scotland : 1940-1950s

This is the first of a new series of books that will cover the history of tramway operation in the British Isles. Focusing on Scotland, this book provides an overview of the history of tramways north of the border from the 1940s, when the first horse-drawn service linking Inchture village to Inchture station opened, through to the closure of the last traditional tramway - Glasgow - in 1962.

Concentrating on the big city systems that survived the Second World War - Aberdeen, Dundee, Edinburgh and Glasgow - the book provides a comprehensive narrative, detailing the history of these operations from 1945 onwards, with full fleet lists, maps and details of route openings and closures.

The story is supported by some 200 illustrations, both colour and black and white, many of which have never been published before, that portray the trams that operated in these cities and the routes on which they operated.
Bringing the story up-to-date, the book also examines the only second-generation tramway yet to be built in Scotland - the controversial system recently constructed in Edinburgh - as well as informing readers where it is still possible to see Scotland's surviving first-generation trams in preservation.

Information

Regional Tramways - The North West of England, Post 1945

This is the third in the 'Regional Tramways' series that covers the history of tramway operation in the British Isles. Focusing on North-West England, the book provides an overview of the history of tramways in the region from the 1860s, when one of the pioneering horse trams that predated the Tramways Act of 1870 operated in Birkenhead (the first tramway to operate in the British Isles), through to the closures of the last traditional tramways (Stockport and Liverpool) in 1951 and 1957.
It also looks at one great survivor the tramway in Blackpool that, fully modernized, continues to operate in the twenty-first century.

Concentrating on the systems that survived into 1945 Blackburn, Blackpool, Bolton, Bury, Darwen, Liverpool, Manchester, Oldham, Salford, SHMD and Stockport the book provides a comprehensive narrative, detailing the history of these operations from 1945 onwards, with full fleet lists, maps and details of route openings and closures.

The story is supported by almost 200 illustrations, both colour and black and white, many of which have never been published before, that portray the trams that operated in these towns and cities, and the routes on which they operated.
Bringing the story up to date, the book also examines the one second-generation tramway built in the region Manchester Metrolink as well as informing readers where it is still possible to see surviving first-generation trams from the region in preservation.

Information