Christian Wolmar’s Tram Trip

Author and campaigner Christian Wolmar has come hot foot from challenging for the Labour nomination for the London Mayoralty to the subject of how we get around our towns and cities without resorting to use of the motor car - which does tend to clog them up rather - and in the process has observed, correctly, that the abandonment of city tram networks was a loss that we could have done without.

A 1930s tramcar: Liverpool 762 is preserved at Birkenhead

Wolmar set out his thoughts in a Guardian article titled “In praise of the tram: how a love of cars killed the workers' transport system”. However, his reasoning misses the stark economic reality that many local authorities had to confront, especially in the years following World War 2, as well as the lack of support for light rail technology in the UK (all new trams come from mainland Europe nowadays).

Even in the last days of tram operation in the 1950s, most of the population did not have access to a car. Therefore the concept of the public being prepared to use trams rather than rely on their own transport did not enter; they had to take whatever was on offer. This was realised by Stuart Pilcher, who was in charge of the Manchester network in the late 20s and 30s. He showed that buses could replace trams, and at a lower cost.

PCC tram technology from the USA was used in the legendary Tatra T3 tram - these examples are at work in Prague

This was at the time when much of the tram infrastructure was wearing out: even though some cities introduced more modern trams and extended their networks during the 1930s, others, primarily London, began the process of abandonment. Had the war not intervened, the London system would have closed a lot earlier than 1952.

At the time London sold its surviving Feltham bogie trams to Leeds in 1950, one observer conceded that not only was the £500 cost for each tram a bargain, but that all-new ones would have cost at least £7,000. A bus could be had for around £4,000. Local authorities were as careful with public funds as today. And that was before the investment in tracks, and overhead wires. It was a huge potential expense for big cities.

Ultimate modern people movers: six-section Siemens Combino 2 trams in Budapest

Liverpool, where new trams were introduced in perhaps the largest numbers in the 1930s, had around 370 modern tramcars. But to replace the rest of the fleet in the post-war years would have needed between 450 and 500 more. Do the math, as they say: a cost differential approaching £1.5 million was difficult to justify. That is why, in the aftermath of the war, the decision was reluctantly taken to abandon the Liverpool system.

On top of that was the almost complete absence of the new technology that had been employed in the USA and mainland Europe. No UK tram operator introduced the kind of articulated tramcars built by firms like Düwag and Schindler. No UK operator introduced a tram with North American PCC technology (many in Europe did - den Haag, Brussels, Rome, Madrid and Barcelona among the adoptees).

Yes, abandoning trams was short-sighted, but local authorities had to deal with where they were at the time, not where they might be decades in the future. Those taking the decisions had books to balance, not a crystal ball to scan. The reality was that buses were cheaper to buy and operate, while nobody wanted to build new trams - nor buy in to the new technology being used in other countries. Had it all happened 20 years later, the decisions may have been different. But by then it was too late.