Trolleybus 857, Townend, Walsall, 1967

            A busy everyday scene in Townend, Walsall in August 1967. The trolleybus bound for Cavendish Road will circle the traffic island to the left (out of shot), and exit the town centre via Green Lane in the backdrop. 

The town centre was beginning to undergo change, and the road system at this location would be heavily remodelled. As a consequence the 33 service could no longer terminate here, and had to be moved behind the ABC cinema, to the left of the photograph.

The neighbouring town of  Wolverhampton having given up trolleybus operation in March 1967, left Walsall as the sole operator of trolleybuses in the West Midlands. 

Walsall was an enthusiastic operator of the trolleybus, and intended to run trolleybus well into the 1970s. However, the course of history was about to change with the coming of the Transport Act 1968. 

Under the Act, four regional passenger transport authorities, (PTA's) were created, one of them being the West Midlands Passenger Transport Authority. This sounded the death knell for the Walsall Trolleybus system. 

From the 1st October 1969, Walsall Corporation Transport Department came under the control and ownership of the newly formed West Midlands passenger Transport Executive. The WMPTE was the operating arm of the WMPTA.

Trolleybuses did not feature in the PTAs future plans. Aside of this, it would take a separate act of parliament to transfer the powers to operate trolleybuses from Walsall Corporation to the WMPTE. This is probably why no trolleybuses carried the WM logo, as they were still technically operated under powers granted to Walsall Corporation?

From around February 1970, the trolleybus fleet was deliberately run down, with ex Birmingham motorbuses being drafted in to supplement many of the town's trolleybus journeys. 

Between August and October 1970, Walsall took delivery of 15 new Daimler Fleetline motorbuses. This was the final nail in the coffin, and the 37-year old trolleybus system finally closed to mixed emotions on the 3rd October 1970.

Taken on: August 1, 1967

Tags:

Walsall Corporation

Corporation

1967

857

TDH907

F4A

Sunbeam

willowbrook

BMC

abc cinema

cinema

albert jagger

ford zephyr

cavendish road

route

service « less

Sets appears in: • Britain in the 1960s • Trolleybuses more » • Walsall • Walsall's Trolleybuses « less

Camera: Plustek OpticFilm 7600i (more info) (hide info)

Camera:	Plustek OpticFilm 7600i
Color Space:	sRGB
Software:	Pixelmator 3.5.1
Show full info

Stats: 5,150 views / 7 comments

close tools panel

Badge creator

Use Flickriver Badge Creator to create a badge linking to your photos, your group or any other Flickriver view.

You can place your badge on your Flickr profile, Blog or Website.

Add to your iGoogle or Netvibes page

Flickriver widget for iGoogle or Netvibes can display almost any Flickriver view - most interesting today, by user, by group, by tag etc. Once added to your personalized homepage, just edit widget settings to select your desired view.

Clickr on one of the buttons below to install:

Embed on your Web site

To embed this view, Copy and Paste the following HTML code:

Black background (preview):

White background (preview):

Firefox and Chrome addons

Adds a 'Flickriver' button to your browser. While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on this button to open the same view on Flickriver.

Install in Firefox
Install in Chrome

Search plugin

Add 'Search on Flickriver' to your browser's search box. Works with Firefox and Internet Explorer. Install search plugin

"View on Flickriver" Greasemonkey script

A Greasemonkey script that adds Flickriver links to various Flickr photo pages - user photos, favorites, pools etc, allowing to quickly open the corresponding Flickriver view.

Also, allows quickly viewing any Flickr photo on black background in large size.

Install "View on Flickriver" script

Bookmarklet

While viewing any Flickr photos page, click on the bookmarklet to open the same view on Flickriver.

To install: drag and drop the following link to your Bookmarks toolbar.
IE users - add the link to your Favorites under the Links folder