Trolleybus: 75 years since the first trolleybus ran in Derby

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It is 75 years since Derby’s first trolleybus service was launched, replacing the old tram system. They successfully ran until the 1960s. Maxwell Craven recalls them with fondness, though they did have their drawbacks, which he personally experienced.

It was just over 70 years ago that Derby ran its last tram – shortsightedly in view of their environmentally friendly nature.

The great argument for their abolition in Derby – they lasted until 1951 in London and longer in places like Sheffield – was that tramways were not flexible enough to cope with the burgeoning suburban expansion.

So they replaced them with an equally environmentally friendly alternative, the trolleybus. And when they were phased out in the 1960s, we were told it was because they were not flexible enough to cope with the burgeoning suburban expansion. Hence we were left with flexible but non-environmentally friendly diesel buses.

The first trolleybus in Derby in 1932

Interestingly, the first scheduled trolleybus service in Derby ran on Saturday, January 9, 1932. The event came about because the Corporation, which since 1899 had run much of Derby’s street transport, decided to convert from trams to trolleybuses in 1929.

The decision may have had much to do with the need to widen Exeter Bridge, then some 80 years old and too narrow for modern traffic.

A new wider bridge was designed by borough surveyor C A Clews, with rather ugly pieced concrete spandrels. But, while it was being built, Herbert Aslin took over Clews’ job and he redesigned as much as he could, including a fine neo-classical balustrade, terminating in stone pylons and steps leading from there to a new pathway alongside the Derwent, lit by elegant bronze and iron lamps.

The new bridge was also to be free of the restrictions imposed by tramlines, which probably influenced the decision to convert to trolleybuses.

In the event, the tram services along Nottingham Road were terminated in November 1930, but the vehicles then still had to cross the Derwent at this point, because the depot was in Nottingham Road.

The council had therefore to provide a new depot in order to free the east side of tramlines, so Swingler’s foundry in Osmaston Road was acquired and adapted.

But it was not ready in time, so one line of tram tracks had to be laid across the half-completed new bridge to allow tramcars to go to and from the old depot for a while, although by the time Herbert Morrison formally opened it on March 13, 1931, the tram track had vanished.

The new trolleybus route, inaugurated 75 years ago, replaced a temporary motorbus service to Lime Grove, Chaddesden, but ran a bit further, to Nottingham Road Creamery, situated roughly where the Asda car park is now.

Services on the January 9 started with the usual motorbuses but in the early afternoon the first trolleybus was brought to the Market Place, where a crowd had gathered to watch the Mayor and chairman of the tramways committee, former tramways official Alderman W H Salisbury, initiate proceedings.

A trolleybus crossing the reconstructed Exeter Bridge in 1932

The idea was that the good alderman would drive the trolleybus as far as Exeter Bridge, although a brief hiatus occurred when a constable of the Borough Police asked the Mayor if he had a driving licence – a question which caused some consternation!

Unlike today, the law took the hint and backed off, allowing Mr Salisbury to drive the new vehicle to the bridge where the project inspector took over for the remainder of the journey, pursued by a second trolleybus packed with journalists, lesser guests and officials.

When I first came to Derby, I lived opposite the cemetery in Uttoxeter New Road and had to commute daily to the college in Mickleover by trolleybus to Chain Lane.

I liked them for their swift, almost silent efficiency, although they were getting a bit tatty by autumn 1966.

I remember one very wet day as we came down through the Rowditch, the bus hit a small lake in the road and a deluge of icy water shot out of a gap below the seating over the rear wheels, seriously wetting the legs of three elderly ladies perched on it!

Occasionally, too, the boom would become detached from the overhead wires, usually due to taking the curve by the City Hospital too fast, and the conductor had to reattach it using a long bamboo pole which lived in a sort of tube beneath the rear wheel seating.

A wagon comes to the rescue of a trolleybus with a broken trolley pole in Babington Lane, Derby, in 1965. Photo Thomas Knowles

On one occasion, I can recall a conductor flicking the pole deftly into place with a rapid wrist movement, making a mighty bang, which caused the usual three elderly ladies seated above to jump visibly, all three as one!

Their very quietness could be a bit of a challenge to the uninitiated, too. I was coming down St Peter’s Street on my girlfriend’s bike one day when a trolley came up so silently from behind me, passing within an inch of my handlebars, that I jumped and fell off, landing at the feet of a couple of ladies out shopping.

They were most solicitous, asking: “Are you all right, duck?” before helping me rescue the items that had rolled out of the basket on the front of my bike.

Despite the huge cost of replacing tramways, no-one seems to be suggesting a return to the trolleybus which, needing less heavy engineering infrastructure, would surely be cheaper to re-introduce? Seventy-five years after their inauguration here, one could ask, why?

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