Maidstone 73, Barming, Maidstone, Kent, 1964

            A delightful scene from bygone Britain taken in July 1964. Maidstone trolleybus No73 is pictured on the A26 Tonbridge Road at The Fountain Inn terminus at Barming. The blonde haired girl running for the bus puts me in mind of '50s and '60s actress Hayley Mills when she was young.

The Maidstone system consisted of two routes. The main route running from Barming in the West to Park Wood (Sutton Road) in the South East. 

South of Maidstone at the Wheatsheaf Inn on the junction of the A274 and A229, a second route branched off along the A229 to the village of 'Loose'. Arriving at Loose, trolleybuses terminated on a small roadside loop at Old Loose Hill.

In comparison to most other British trolleybus systems, Maidstone was quite small with a maximum of 24 vehicles. 
Maidstone had employed trolleybuses from 1928 to replace their ageing tramway system. Trolleybus operations in town ended 39-years later on the 15th April 1967. 

Along with the Teesside trolleybus system near Middlesbrough, these were the two smallest trolleybus systems to survive into the last years of British trolleybus operations. Teesside surviving until 1971,

Today, three former Maidstone trolleybuses are preserved 52 (LCD52), 56 (GKP511) and 72 (HKR11). 
 
56 is privately owned and was for a time at the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft, Lincolnshire along with 72.  I don't know if 56 still resides there?

52 can be found at the East Anglia Transport Museum at Carlton Colville in Suffolk.

Scanned from the original 35mm slide.

Taken on: May 9, 2024

Tags:

Maidstone

trolleybus

system

operation

1960s

1964

Barming

Fountain Inn

Loose

Park Wood

Kent

HKR12

Sunbeam

Northern Coach Builders

NCB

rentaset « less

Sets appears in: • Britain in the 1960s • England, this England more » • South East • Trolleybuses « less

Groups appears in: • Kent buses and coaches • Corporation Buses more » • South-Coast Transport « less

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

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