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In the 1960s the majority of bus photography was in black and
white, but an increasing number of people were also working with
colour. This new album from Mick Webber gathers 100 high-quality
photos taken around London during that decade. It takes us back to
the days when the RT family of buses was supreme, backed up by
Routemasters, RFs, RLHs and the first of the buses bought as part
of London Transport's plans for reshaping its bus services.
The London Passenger Transport Board had been in existence just
over six years when Britain entered into war with Germany on 3rd
September 1939. A year before, measures had been put in place to
provide trench shelters, first aid points, and the adaptation of
pits in garages to become shelters. Over twenty thousand male staff
were called up during the war, and women joined the ranks to fill
the void. One hundred and eighty one members of staff were killed
whilst on duty, with over eighteen hundred injured. Heroic work,
and the will to "get on with it" was the general way of getting
things done, summed up by just one of many examples at Athol Street
garage, nearer the end of the war. It was the Board's most bombed
garage, due to the nearby docks, and after a rocket fell at 6am
within 100 yards of the premises blowing out the windows of 25
buses, and causing considerable damage, the staff were able to get
all of the buses out on time that day. This book is a largely
chronological story of the period, focusing in particular on the
behind-the-scenes planning by London Transport, both before the war
and during it.
Mick Webber's latest album fills an important gap in book titles
currently available on London bus history. All garages owned by
London Transport in the fifty years following its formation in 1933
are included, with brief histories and photographs. Also included
are plans of each garage and an appendix gives vehicle requirements
at July 1933 and June 1983. The following year, London Transport
was superseded by London Regional Transport in the move that opened
up London's bus routes to independent operators and was to lead to
the closure of many garages.
There is a certain atmosphere about night photography. It is much
easier now, of course, since the advent of digital cameras that
record events that would not have been so easily covered with film.
Dragging a tripod around, or looking for a suitable flat topped
wall in the right place, was necessary with time exposures, and
even then it was often guesswork. Many of the trips after dark with
my camera, produced as many failures as successes, but overall, the
process was very rewarding. This book contains around 120 black and
white and colour views from the early twentieth century up to the
present day.
This new book deals with the primarily busy routes that were very
well served by trolleybuses during their 31 years in London. Each
chapter includes new research and the pre-war, wartime and post-war
operations are all covered, as is - for the first time - the
planning of the conversion programme that in due course saw the end
of London trolleybus operation. Well illustrated in carefully
selected black and white photographs.
In this album, Mick Webber gathers some beautifully evocative
photographs showing buses, trams and trolleybuses of London
Transport at work during the period from 1933, when the
organisation was formed, until 1969. In doing so he shows changes
not only to transport in the capital but to London itself. Whilst
primarily a black and white album, there is also a 1950s colour
section. Much of the period covered by this book is looked back
with nostalgia as a golden age for transport interest, but the
times were often far from golden to live in. As the 1930s
progressed the threat of war increased, only to become reality at
the end of that period. With Britain at war in the first half of
the 1940s and struggling to recover in the second half, that decade
was difficult to live through for most Londoners. Poverty and
slum-dwelling was widespread and it was only in the 1960s that the
country fully recovered from the damage suffered by war. This was a
period of mass rebuilding - often in a style not appreciated today
- and parts of London were to change their appearance dramatically
from then on. Many of the places shown in this album are still very
recognisable today but others have changed completely.
This book looks at the very beginnings of motor buses in the early
years of the twentieth century. A good selection of photographs is
accompanied by articles on different aspects of the story,
including the first motor bus routes, driver training, the
pioneers, alternatives to the petrol engine including electric
buses, and developments up to the first covered top buses.
This album shows the progress in London Transport bus and coach
design from the vehicles being operated at the time the
organisation came into being up to the time its Country Buses were
transferred away. Perhaps surprisingly this is the first book to do
this in album form. The progress in designs pictured in the book is
punctuated by utility and non-standard types forced on the
organisation by the circumstances of war and post-war shortages and
by buses that have come to grief in accidents or flooding. Most of
the photographs have not been seen before in print.
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