The Trams

Until April 1952, when I was still six-years-old, trams came along Mildmay Road then round the east side of Newington Green into Green Lanes and on up to Manor House, that was the end of the line, by the Manor House pub; they could go no further as the tramlines beyond that were taken up many years before. The driver then walked from the front to the rear of the tram, which now became the front, and then drove his number 33 tram back to West Norwood.
There's a photo of the number 33 at Manor House that you can see on Flickr.

The driver stood to drive the tram. It was a standing-up job. It must have got cold in winter, as there was no door between him and the outside. Presumably the tram drivers muffled up well, perhaps they stamped their feet as they rode along, though I have no memory of travelling on the tram in winter, only summer, when occasionally my mother would take us to Manor House, for a short walk in Finsbury Park to see the ducks on the pond.

Seats on the tram were of slatted wood in an iron frame, and the back of the seat was on a pivot at the centre-base, so you could bring the seat back forward and over, to make the seats face forwards again for the return journey home. Great fun for a five-year-old, pulling the clattery seat-backs forward, though you had to be quick as the conductor mainly did this at the terminus, with a great banging clunking of a single movement down the tram.

The trams up to Manor House took their power from a conduit under the road, where a mechanism called a plough went from under the tram through a slot in the road, into the conduit where it touched the power source. I can remember no warnings to never poke bits of wire down the slot, and maybe that would have been difficult anyway, it sounds a bit hazardous now but maybe that is just a change of health and safety awareness.

Between the rails was not tarmac, it was tarry-blocks. These were blocks of wood that had been soaked in tar, these would presumably have allowed for easier maintenance than tarmac at the time. Occasionally a block would work loose, where it was much prized to be spirited away home, as it burned on the fire long and magnificently. There were usually a number of gaps to be seen in the tarry-blocks.

The tram stops were on the pavement, but the trams did not pull into the kerb, the rails ran straight along the centre of the road, so that in order to board the tram you walked out into the road, hoping and trusting, I suppose, that no boy racer in his motorbike and sidecar was going to try zipping along the inside. This system of walking out in front of the traffic to board a tram still exists in parts of eastern Europe.

There were accidents with trams. My uncle John was killed in an accident before I was born, though I think this was something to do with him trying to jump on a moving one and missing his footing. Hard to find out the details now.

But the main treat with a number 33 tram was when my dad took me for a ride to the Embankment, for then the tram went through the Kingsway Tunnel, where it just fitted between the white-tiled walls that passed within inches of the sides, and in the tunnel the tram stopped at white-tiled stations. It was all a bit scary. At the Embankment it popped out of the tunnel underneath Waterloo Bridge and made a sharp screeching turn right, on towards Westminster Bridge.

In April 1952  the number 33 trams finished and the rails were taken up. The number 33 tram route was replaced by bus route 171, which rather than turning round at Manor House carried on up Green Lanes, then turned right at the Salisbury pub into St Anne’s Road and Philip Lane to Tottenham High Road ending its route at Bruce Grove. At the southern end of the route, initially, it continued to run to West Norwood following exactly the same route as the tram except that never went through the Kingsway Tunnel, instead it went down Kingsway to Aldwych, then across Fleet Street into a little road bringing it down by the Temple to the Embankment. The number 171 route has changed frequently over the years.

The trams were noisy and cranky and screechy and getting old and of a time gone by even in the 1950s, but instead of modernising the trams, the authorities replaced them with buses. In retrospect now this seems shortsighted, adding to traffic congestion rather than defeating it, but I suppose it all seemed to simple at the time, buses could overtake each other and their routes could be modified. It left London lagging behind a bit, in public transport though, dispensing with trams altogether. 

Dave

A number 35 tram comes out from the Kingsway Tunnel in 1933. The number 35 followed the same route as the 33 to the Angel and then went up Holloway Road to Archway. Nice lettering on the number of that 177 bus. Photo courtesy Leonard Bentley on Flickr.

In the old eastern Europe people still often walk into the road to get on a tram. This was Rostock in east Germany in July 2010.