Why electric buses and trams are public transport’s future – Yorkshire Post Letters

SO Ed Miliband wants to see an ‘electric vehicle revolution’ (The Yorkshire Post, March 25). Almost a century ago most people travelled on electric vehicles in Yorkshire towns and cities as few had cars.

They were of course trams and trolleybuses, as featured in your report (March 27). We hear a lot about new electric buses now but Huddersfield, Hull, Doncaster, Rotherham, Mexborough and Swinton and even Teesside had electric buses until the 60s. Bradford had the largest electric bus network outside London, the last in Britain when it closed in 1972. How short sighted that we threw them all away.

From: Don Metcalfe, Southowram , Halifax.

YOUR recent picture of a Leeds City tram brought back memories for me. I lived in Scarborough during the war years and for school holidays I went to my grandparents at Beeston, Leeds.

My Uncle Jim was a tram driver on the Beeston-Harehills route, his wife, Aunt Ethel was his conductor complete with a wind-out ticket machine.

The Beeston trams were a little special in that they had sand boxes under the seats. This sand was used to give the brakes a grip on Beeston Hill. I spent many happy hours riding at the front of the top deck riding the route between Beeston and Harehills.

On departing the tram I was allowed to work the bell which was used as a traffic warning. Thank you for bringing back these memories.

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