TROLLY BUSES

Wairarapa Times-Age, 11 April 1938, Page 7

TROLLY BUSES

LONDON TRAMS SCRAPPED. BIG CONVERSION PROGRAMME. The all-conquering trolly bus has now made its appearance in the City of London itself. For some years it has been making rapid progress in the suburbs, and this week the largest scheme of conversion so far undertaken has brought the trolly bus into the heart of London. The new conversion involves the replacement of eight more tramcar routes. A fleet of 93 trolly buses will be used instead, making the total number in London over 700. They now operate over about 182 route miles in the city and suburbs. For silence, smoothness and comfort the new trolly buses approach private car standards. Their acceleration is 50 per cent greater than that of tramcars or buses, and complaints have been made that they are so nearly noiseless that pedestrians have no warning of their approach. They are two-decker vehicles, carrying 70 passengers seated and five standing. In point of mileage the Transport Board's conversion programme has already progressed more than half-way, for the entire process involves the changing of about 330 miles of track and the superseding of tramcars by about 2500 trolly buses at a cost of £10.000,000.

In less than five years the tramcar will have disappeared from London. Probably the last to go will be the services which feed the Embankment. Here there are tricky points to be decided, such as turning places, which require parliamentary sanction. The existing fleet of trolly buses can carry 400,000.000 passengers a year.