London Tramways - The Path to Unification - 1. Setting up ‘London Transport Tramways’.

The Path to Unification

1. Setting up 'London Transport Tramways'.

"Who controls the conduit, controls London's tramways!" Well that is one way of putting it but nevertheless the LCC was by far the largest London tramway operator and had direct connections with all municipality and company operators, although no so strong with Ilford. By March 1933 the political scene showed a rush to get the unification legisation through for mid-summer, so the Chief Officer and his cohorts acted in anticipation. Theodore Thomas, his rolling stock engineer George Sinclair and his civil engineer Percy Croom Johnson developed a questionnaire, which went to all the municipal operators. All responded resulting in policies for fleet numbering/maintenance and track/buildings maintenance which were in place when 1st July 1933 was announced as the start date for LPTB. The company operators were already as one under the management of Christopher Spencer. Thus LPTB commenced with two divisions, both under the control of former "company"employees!!! To Thomas went 'Tramways Central, South & East' and 'Tramways North & West"to Spencer. In October 1933, Spencer resigned his tramway interest to concentrate on power generation and trolleybus consultancy. So under Thomas the tramways became one and remained under his control for the following 12 years; in the process the department becoming 'Trams & Trolleybuses'.

2. Fleet Numbering.

Prior to July 1933, Thomas and Sinclair could only plan the renumbering of the 'municipal' trams. With the LCC fleet so large, it was obvious that the cheapest method would be to assimilate non-LCC cars into the existing LCC numbering scheme from No.1. Sinclair continued to relate these numbers to the Capital Asset Register that LPTB inherited from the LCC. However, with so many cars numbered one at take-over, they developed a number suffix system - C Bexley, D Erith, E Croydon, F Ilford, G East Ham, H West Ham and K Walthamstow. The renumbering went from 1 to 2119 with 2-4 and 400-401 as blanks. In March, it became very apparent that the Bexley and Erith cars were far from satisfactory and needed probably more attention that any other cars to be taken over. So bad were the Bexley cars that they were the earliest municipal cars to be followed by the Erith cars, to be withdrawn. When Spencer resigned all that appears to have been decided on the 'company' vehicles was to keep the trolleybuses in their separate scheme from No.1.

Within days of take-over, the renumbering of 1446 produced another blank in the "1933 Scheme". Despite urgent attention given to grinding the badly corrugated tracks of Bexley and Erith, the M class single truck was taking its toll. The complete local network needed major reconstruction. The Abbey Wood to Erith section had subsided so badly on the unstable Thames marshland that a new direct double track tramway from Bostall Woods to Erith town centre was costed. Thus the decision was taken to convert to trolleybus and powers sought in the first LPTB Bill presented to Parliament in November. Transfer of 53, 58, and 349 showed that the Croydon W/1 class truck was superior to that of Class M. The renovation of the remaining Ms was halted and the Erith balcony bodies were mounted on the Croydon trucks. The request for statutory trolleybus powers also included the western and southern 'company' lines and with the extension of service 30 to West Croydon in December using 'municipal' cars, the rolling stock picture had changed completely from that Thomas and Sinclair had seen nine months earlier.

From the lst July, tramcar overhauls were concentrated at Charlton, Hendon and West Ham. The 'municipal' cars immediately received the LCC livery with LPTB numbering using LCC transfers. The 'company' just had the old fleet name painted out retaining 'company' livery. 1934 saw the confirmation of a revised 'one fleet' numbering scheme whereby the 'municipals' now ended at 2065. Instead of renumbering the 'company' in order of their type classification ie. A - H (ex-MET), J - P (ex - SMET), T - W (ex-LUT) and UCC, the policy was to only renumber those cars required after 1935. And then starting from 2066 with the best 'company' cars finishing with those that would be going to the scrap yard the soonest. Any other tram that would be retained before 1936 would be left with its suffixed number. So the ex-SMET cars were thus excluded and retained their old numbers suffixed by 's'. Internally, LPTB had used suffices for the 'company' cars - 'L' London United, 'M' Metropolitan and 'S' Southmet. By the time a few cars reached their next scheduled overhaul, there was already no need for them. So they awaited the scrap man without receiving their allocated numbers.

By the time the new London Transport fleet name was introduced in May 1934, the new red and cream was being applied with the new LPTB numbers in Gill Sans style in gold edged in black. The highest number carried by a LPTB tram was 2529. Croydon Tramlink's 1998 cars were numbered in the LPTB 1934 revised series from 2530. So it is hoped that the policy of applying the highest numbers to the cars destined to go for scrap the soonest also ceased at 2529 ! ! !

By Colin Withey - Ed. J. Wills.

Go to Page 2

London Tramway Notes
Search for Photographs