Electric Trams

[DavidGrain]

So with the above information we can date the photo of car 342 on Bearwood Road to September 1939 or just before as that was the month that tram route 29 was converted to bus route B82 (now 82). Possibly even the last day of service on the route.

 

[Richard Dye]

love the old adverts..i did wonder if the photo was taken at snow hill...maybe looking at the tram numbers and destinations some of our transport experts would know

lyn

It seems when I was growing up there were no adverts on BC buses and then there were adverts. Does anyone know why they were not shown and then suddenly they were?

 

[Richard Dye]

I used the 34 bus in the 1960s to get to college in Gosta Green. I used to catch it at the Warley Odean stop on Hagley Road West.
The route, if I remember it correctly, was Hagley Road, Islington Row, Bath Row, Holloway Head, Suffolk Street, Swallow Street, Hill Street, New Street, Corporation Street then the 33 route out of Birmingham. I would get off in Lancaster Place opposite the Central Fire Station.
If I remember correctly the return journey must have been Dale End, High Street, New Street, Stephenson Place, Stephenson Street, Navigation Street, John Bright Street Holloway Head and return as above.
One morning I was on the 34 (showing 33 as it was a cross city service) when on the turn from Swallow Street into Hill Street, the driver appeared to have got his gearbox in a twist or something because the bus could not move and was stopped foul of the junction which must have brought Birmingham to a stop that day. Realising that he was not going to move, I got off and walked across the city centre to college.
The 34 Hagley Road tram and the Dudley Road tram ) used to meet at the Kings Head but were never connected

The 34 Tram at Kings Head Bearwood

View attachment 182544

The 29 Tram on Bearwood Road near the Kings Head

View attachment 182545

David, how long did it take you to make that journey each way?

 

[DavidGrain]

David, how long did it take you to make that journey each way?

After 60 years that is a difficult one but this is my best guess. I would leave home at 8.00am or perhaps up to 10 minutes earlier, walk 10 minutes to bus stop, wait for a specific bus letting several others go by, traffic not too big a problem as on the Hagley Road in those days was not so much the volume of traffic but the traffic lights bunching the traffic. Once past Five Ways pretty easy. I would be in place for a 0.15am start of lecture.
Home in the evening an easier journey, leaving college at 5.00pm, I would be home soon after 6.00pm.

They always seemed to be the older buses on this route but this photo is well before my time. Anyone who knew Bearwood before about 1970 will recognise this photo. Although you cannot see the route number it is a 34 bus to Quinton.

 

[DavidGrain]

It seems when I was growing up there were no adverts on BC buses and then there were adverts. Does anyone know why they were not shown and then suddenly they were?

Although the trams carried many advertisements, BCT had a policy of not advertising on the buses because they thought it lowered the image of the system. I think sometime around 1960 they started to carry adverts but it was a controversial decision.

 

[Lloyd]

It seems when I was growing up there were no adverts on BC buses and then there were adverts. Does anyone know why they were not shown and then suddenly they were?

You are quite right. The transport committee decreed that buses should not carry adverts, although trams could. The tramway closure in 1953 ended a very necessary source of income, so the instruction was ended a short while after. Perhaps previously buses were for a better class of passenger?

 

[Lloyd]

Another Ray Coxon photo of 342 at Bearwood, almost certainly taken at the same time. That's his bike propped up by the kerb, far right - it often appeared in his photos.

 

[Richard Dye]

After 60 years that is a difficult one but this is my best guess. I would leave home at 8.00am or perhaps up to 10 minutes earlier, walk 10 minutes to bus stop, wait for a specific bus letting several others go by, traffic not too big a problem as on the Hagley Road in those days was not so much the volume of traffic but the traffic lights bunching the traffic. Once past Five Ways pretty easy. I would be in place for a 0.15am start of lecture.
Home in the evening an easier journey, leaving college at 5.00pm, I would be home soon after 6.00pm.

They always seemed to be the older buses on this route but this photo is well before my time. Anyone who knew Bearwood before about 1970 will recognise this photo. Although you cannot see the route number it is a 34 bus to Quinton.

View attachment 182548

Amazing what we did when we had to. I used take the bus from Handsworth to Snow Hill, walk across town to take the bus to Edgbaston, UofB in just about an hour both ways rain or shine!

 

[mikejee]

Do not think that particularly amazing for a youngish person. The car culture has meant that people get to places quickly, but instead waste their time on stupid machines in overpriced "gyms" , often run by dubious profiteers

 

[DavidGrain]

Another Ray Coxon photo of 342 at Bearwood, almost certainly taken at the same time. That's his bike propped up by the kerb, far right - it often appeared in his photos.

View attachment 182549

Cars parked both sides of the Bearwood Road. When I was a boy, I remember they had the Odds and Evens system. You parked on the odd numbered side of the road on odd dates and on the even numbered side of the road on even dates and the council employed a man to go round every night changing the signs over

 

[DavidGrain]

Do not think that particularly amazing for a youngish person. The car culture has meant that people get to places quickly, but instead waste their time on stupid machines in overpriced "gyms" , often run by dubious profiteers

When I was at George Dixon Grammar School in City Road, Edgbaston, it was before the days of catchment areas and I would say that a quarter of the boys came from the other side of the city having to change buses in the city centre. I, myself, did not even live in Birmingham at the time.

 

[Radiorails]

As a postscript car 342 survived until withdrawal in 1950.

 

[Richard Dye]

Although the trams carried many advertisements, BCT had a policy of not advertising on the buses because they thought it lowered the image of the system. I think sometime around 1960 they started to carry adverts but it was a controversial decision.

Thank you.... Thats about the time that I recall.