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City Centre Photographs

Hi Phil
Maybe our city will resemble that style in years to come with all the big glass building we are are sticking up
To me our council on these foreign trips are taking snap shots of other countries and dezigning them here
Yankie style I say. Have a good day best wishes astonian,,,
 
Jayell

This is the escape artiste chap showing off some of his other skills. It looks as if he has just done the escape routine because you can see the chains on the floor on the one photo.

Didn't he used to have a woman with him that did the escape act as well, because though only a young lad at time I can still remember them trying to elicit more cash out of the male spectators by saying she had lost her trousers whilst wriggling inside the sack trying to get out of the chains.
 

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Pic #1509 brings back memories, I was 9 in 1939 and we had just moved to Shirley from Sheldon and once a fortnight we visited our Nan in Queens Rd Aston, this meant catching a Midland Red bus (154 I think) to the Bull Ring, walking up past where that pic was taken to Martineau St to catch the 3X tram to Aston, we still went to see her and Grandad during and after the bombing (not during the actual air raids of course) Eric
 
Eric

A photo of Martineau Street with a couple of trams waiting to be loaded, but sadly a 3X is not one of them.
 

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The 154 bus route was Bull Ring to Solihull via the Stratford Road and I am pretty sure Blossomfield Road. That probably altered after the WMT take over. The 150 went on to Stratford upon Avon. There were others as well.
 
Something suggests that the cars in Martineau Street (1521) are on or shortly before the closure of the Alum Rock and Washwood Heath routes. The leading car, the last numerically in the Cities tramcar fleet, is on a 'Special' working most likely full on enthusiasts.
As always. just my opinion, others may know differently.
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Radiorails
I have a very poor copy (from a newspaper) of the picture at #1521 which states that it was of the very last tram made for Birmingham , with an aluminium body, taken in april 1948
 
Thanks Mike, I will down load that to put in my 'Birmingham Memories' file, I can see the good old News theatre cinema in the background, visited there many times. This pic was taken a year before I joined the RAF in 1948, when I got demobbed in 1956 sadly all the trams had gone, the 3X being replaced by the 39 bus. I believe the No. 8 tram behind was the Alum Rock route, there is an area that as vastly changed - and not for the better. Radiorails we caught the 154 bus corner of Marshall Lake Rd and Cranmore Rd before it turned right into Stratford Rd. Happy times even though there was a war on and strict rationing. Sad to think these times have gone forever. Eric
 
Going back to the escape artiste, He also lay on a bed of nails while someone stood on his chest, can remember him letting me put my finger in the dents on his back.

Nick
 
Indeed it was Mike. The preceding numbered car (842) also had a lightweight body. There had been plans for more cars like them, I believe, but the Transport committee (if that is what it was) realized that great advances had been made in the design and features of buses and as most of the tramcar fleet was aged the fleet had to go. Route closures started and buses replaced them - Coventry Road routes by Trolleybuses. WW2 delayed the trams demise. They were fun to ride upon.

I don't think modern trams have the same charisma in any way.

I have written on this site before about this, but will mention it again. In 1964/5? I visited Birmingham and decided to take my then, young bride, to tea at Kunzles in Martineau Street. Imagine my disappointment to find Knunzles and Martineau Street gone!
 
Thanks Phil for the photos of the escape artist in the Bull Ring #1519. Yes, that's how I remember seeing him when I was a little girl. I don't remember ever seeing a woman with him but it's a long time ago now and I really can't remember. Good way of trying to get a bit more cash though!!

Judy
 
Another photo to bring back the memories Phil. Martineau Street trams and shops with the News Theatre in the background. My Dad used to take me to see the cartoons there if we were in town. And I only recently found out that the pub next door to the News Theatre was adjoining the Waverley Hotel in New Meeting Street which my grandparents ran in the 1920's.

Judy
 
When I was quite young, I remember walking down New Meeting Street, which was very narrow. I stopped to watch a railway
man trying to get his horse and cart passed a parked car. The horse moved a little quickly, scraped along the side of the car, taking
the door handle off the car. The horse cart driver calmly placed the door handle on the roof of the car, and went on his way down New
Meeting Street!! I often wonder what the car driver thought when he returned to his car. Eddie
 
Great photos of the trams on Martineau Street Mike. They were gone by the time I started school around the corner at Pitman's College in 1953
and the buses were in place. The scene didn't alter much over the years until the streets were changed.
 
My son, (a Hong Kong resident) is insistent that Hong Kong purchased all the redundant trams from Birmingham and "poshed them up".
I can't believe it myself but is there anyone out there who'd know if he's right ?
 
Maypolebaz

I am no expert on Birmingham Corporation Trams, but I know we have others on here who are so perhaps they might be able to give a more definitive answer than I can. I know that most of the old tram stock was sold to Birds of Stratford upon Avon who scrapped them. Perhaps Hong Kong were able to buy a few as well?
 

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Jayell said:
Another photo to bring back the memories Phil. Martineau Street trams and shops with the News Theatre in the background. My Dad used to take me to see the cartoons there if we were in town. And I only recently found out that the pub next door to the News Theatre was adjoining the Waverley Hotel in New Meeting Street which my grandparents ran in the 1920's.

Judy
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Hi judy I used to have the occasional pint in a little bar called the red lion, which was part of the Waverley hotel, this was in the mid 70s and I think the hotel part was long closed
by then. I have a photo which I tried to upload, but could,nt with a quote, so will try after. Michael
 
Hi folks just trying to catch up on posts after our trip to the U.S. which was enjoyed very much. The mistake on the post card from Birmingham, Alabama is an easy one. I did it on a postcard from Birmingham, Michigan which I hoped to visit but ran out of time! I love looking at the photo's of the old trams. I don't remember them I have only seen them in museums. They do have a special place in my heart as my Dad proposed to my Mom on the top deck of a tram in Aston..!!
 
Hello Michael, and thanks so much for the information about the Red Lion/Waverley Hotel. Also thanks for the great photo. It's one I haven't seen before. I had heard that the pub on the corner was part of the Waverley, but I knew nothing about it. My grandparents (Albert and Emma Tuck) had the hotel in the early 1920's I believe and sold it before 1938 I would guess. No one mentioned any pub connection to me but who knows!!! From a newspaper article in the Birmingham Gazette in 1865 it is known as the Waverley Temperance Hotel, so the pub wouldn't have been part of it in those days! I wonder if the Red Lion was connected to the Waverley when my family had it.

Judy
 
I have never heard, or read evidence, that ex BCT cars were shipped to HK. The HK services were severely curtailed during the Japanese occupation in WW2 and a modernisation of the fleet took place. They did share the same track gauge with Birmingham (UK) i.e. 3ft.6ins. but as another poster mentioned they were transported to Birds of Stratford upon Avon on low loaders. The top deck was cut down, at Kyotts Lake Road (as far as I remember) and they were transported as two halves - upper and lower decks. Whether this was more convenient for loading, or because of bridges, such at the canal bridge at Wooten Wawen I don't know. In the early fifties they were a common sight travelling outwards from the city along Stratford Road and the suburbs.

Apologies to Moderators for being somewhat off topic.
 
Jayell
The Red Lion and the Waverley Commercial Hotel seem to be listed as separate establishments and with separate managers. Albert Tuck is listed at the Waverley up to the 1937 Kellys , and then the Red Lion is listed as under Samuel Phillip Bailie. similarly , the 1935 electoral rolls list thwm as separate establishments.
 
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