Off his Trolley!

Regular readers (assuming of course that I actually have any) will know that there is a book on the subject of the buses and coaches produced by Guy Motors in the works at the moment. Progress is good with the first draft of the text almost finished.

A coupe of weeks ago, we headed up to Carlton Colville on the outskirts of Lowestoft to the home of the East Anglia transport Museum. Lowestoft has two claims to fame: first it is the most easterly point of the British Isles and second, it was the home of Eastern Coach Works who built the bodies for thousands of buses, mostly on chassis produced by Bristol Commercial Vehicles.

The museum is quite special because it has an operational trolleybus circuit and a fleet of buses to run under the wires. Being just about old enough to remember trolleys running in Portsmouth, I have always found these electric vehicles to have a fascination all of their own. With all the current hysteria on low emission vehicles and the impracticalities of running public transport on batteries, I don't understand why we don't look again at the trolleybus. Although I am writing this at the same time as the former Great Western Railway line is closed for the weekend so Network Rail can check they have got their wiring right on the latest electrification scheme. Let's hope someone has a shilling for the meter.

But getting back to our topic... Lowestoft is quite a trek from Fareham and so it took us just about four hours to get there. As this included a half way round trip on the London Orbital Car Park Motorway and the Dartford Crossing, that probably wasn't too bad. The plan was to arrive in the early afternoon for a spot of photography and the highlight of the weekend - twilight running.

So here are a few pictures from the event:

The only remaining operational Portsmouth trolleybus is 313, which did actually run on route 5 and 6 along Copnor Road and was one of the routes that I went on as a child. We look after the prototype Portsmouth trolleybus on behalf of Portsmouth Museums in our "collection", but there is little or no hope of it ever running under its own power again and it's hidden away in a corner, so can't even be seen easily. It would be so much better if it were here, even if not running.

A yellow trolleybus with doors at the front - so it must be Bournemouth and this one is from a batch that was right at the end of production. Bournemouth Transport actually took the very last trolleybus that was built for the home market

This one was new to Reading Corporation, but when their system closed, it found its way to Teeside who kept their system running a little longer. It has recently been thoroughly restored and repainted for its first public appearance at this event.

Upstairs on the Portsmouth bus trying to hide behind one of the poles is a familiar figure! This one was restored some years ago at Carlton Colville and is still in spotless condition. At one time, Portsmouth had a degree of civic pride and this was reflected in the Corporation transport fleet that was always turned out clean, although the seats became rather grubby over the years

Now for some twilight running. South East London didn't have the tube, but it did have an extensive trolleybus network, so after a good night out, we'll take this one to Woolwich. Many of the LT fleet found second lives after that system closed with some going to Spain or Portugal.

And after a night out at the seafront, we need to get home, so the trolley from South Parade Pier to "The Tivoli" will do nicely and we can walk along Chichester Rd a little way. "The Tivoli", which was a cinema in Copnor Road close to where the Co-Op dairy used to be, had long gone when I was a child, but was what one asked for when paying the fare.  New conductors must have been very confused with passengers asking for fares to places that no longer existed!

I don't suppose you'll have seen one of these before. This is a "half decker", an early attempt at getting a large number of people into a low vehicle. You can see from the window positions how the seating is arranged in groups of four. The upper deck passengers leg space was between the seat backs of the lower deck and steps were needed to climb up or down into each compartment. The design was not a success and this is believed to be the only surviving example of about twenty to have been built. My interest in this is that the prototype was built on a Guy chassis

Apart from a general interest in trolleybuses, the Bournemouth and Reading / Teeside vehicles, plus a few others running on the day, were built by Sunbeam who were the largest builder of electric vehicles in the UK. In 1948, Guy Motors who had previously also built large numbers of trolleys bought Sunbeam and Karrier (both businesses having been previously sold by the Rootes Brothers) and decided to sell everything under the Sunbeam brand.