The trolley bus ruled the road

But for 18-year-old Graham Sidwell, there was another issue occupying his mind: Wolverhampton Corporation's plans to scrap the town's trolley bus network.

"I and a couple of others campaigned for the trolley buses to be saved," says Graham, who has just published a new book on the subject.

"It was mainly a letter-writing campaign. I was in the sixth-form at Wolverhampton Grammar School. I think it might have been quite a surprise when they received our objections."

Despite his protests, the decision had been made, and the last Wolverhampton trolley bus service ran on March 5, 1967. It is with some regret that Graham recalls not being on it.

"I was a student at what was Lanchester College in Coventry, now Coventry University, and I had an exam at the time," he says.

"I decided my career was more important than being on the last trolley bus. I was there on the last day, going up and down the Dudley route."

The trolley buses were introduced in 1923, to replace the old electric trams.

"The old rails were worn, but they had still got the investment in the electrical infrastructure," he says. "Also in 1923, the alternative would have been a petrol-engined bus, which was quite expensive to run."

Network

Wolverhampton was only the second tramway in the country to convert to the new electric buses, and in the 1930s the town had the biggest trolley bus system in the world.

As well as covering the four corners of Wolverhampton, the network also provided routes to Dudley, Walsall and Bilston, providing a comprehensive public transport network which complemented the pre-Beeching railway service.

There were legitimate reasons why the trolley buses were scrapped. There had always been problems of the buses being left stranded in the road after coming off the wires, and it was not unusual for passengers to get off the bus and push it back on to its course.

But Graham says the main reasons for getting rid of the trolley buses were cost-driven.

"The main reason was the motor buses were cheaper," he says.

"The system had become quite run-down towards the end, and needed a lot of work.

"The last route lasted longer than they wanted, because they were waiting for the delivery of diesel buses."

In 1961 Wolverhampton's transport manager Robert Addlesee pointed out that 91 of the town's 153 trolley buses would need replacing within four years, and that their replacements would each cost £1,200 more than the equivalent diesel.

The planned Wolverhampton ring road, which would mean major route changes for many services, and therefore the need to replace the overhead cable network, also presented problems.

In May that year the council decided to operate the trolley bus system "to the end of its useful life".

The teenage Graham Sidwell was not impressed.

"They replaced the trolley buses with a mode of transport that goes around guzzling imported fuel," he says.

"A lot of European and American cities still use trolley buses. They have them in Switzerland and they still have them in parts of France, where they have upgraded them. Everywhere, in fact, except here."

Graham says at the time, the differences to passengers would have been barely noticeable.

"They might have noticed that the trolley buses were quieter and accelerated quicker, but probably the only thing most passengers would have noticed was that the motor buses were more modern and had front entrances," he says.

Graham says the trolley buses, with their distinctive green and yellow livery which was carried through to the later diesel buses, had a big place in the hearts of people from Wolverhampton.

Pollution

"There were two or three generations growing up around them, they were for many years the main form of transport," he says.

"They were noiseless and pollution free - at least at the point of usage, the pollution would have come from the power station."

Graham's book features 120 pictures of trolley buses in different locations - mainly around Wolverhampton, although there are also pictures along the routes into Dudley, Walsall and Bilston - which he took himself during the 1960s.

"There are two ways of looking at it: they are either pictures of trolley buses, or a record of Wolverhampton as it was in the 1960s, when there were trolley buses," he says.

"There are some places where not a single building remains, but there are other pictures, like the ones in Whitmore Reans, where nothing has changed, the only difference is there are no trolley bus wires."

Now retired and living in Stourbridge, he decided to publish the book in time for the 40th anniversary since the last Wolverhampton trolley bus ran.

As electric transport appears to be coming into fashion again, is there any chance that some time in future the streets of the West Midlands will reverberate to the gentle hum of trolley buses?

"You can never say never - they work elsewhere," he says. "I never thought we would see trams running along the Bilston Road again."

l Wolverhampton Trolleybuses 1961 to 1967 by Graham Sidwell is available in bookshops now priced £14.95.

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