About LUT 159: A message from Curly; This design of tram was run in large quantities by the Metropolitan Electric and the London United companies in London. The Metropolitan Electric ones were very fast. The London United ones were very slow. Outside London only Cardiff had cars of this type, but I have a feeling they were four wheelers.

The London United ordered far too many cars, planning them to serve wildly optimistic extensions which never came about. This made them available to send to other systems in the 1914-18 war, when rollingstock was needed in other places. Blackpool had some, so did Erith and I can’t remember offhand which others. None of these systems loved them, as they were extremely slow!

After London Transport was formed in 1933, the new LPTB sent some (which had been fitted with very primitive roofs) to the South Metropolitan Tramways, which then only had ancient 4 – wheel open-toppers. They put them on the West Croydon to Sutton route.

I was taken by my Father on some errand or other to Wallington, and I remember well (I was scarcely 5) waiting for a tram back to Croydon, and this extraordinary monster arrived! I had never seen anything like it! Even though very young, I well remember how rattly, leaky and primitive it all was, and painfully slow. The Sutton route was trolleybussed in 1935, which was the last year these cars ran.

I reckon I must be one of the very few tramway enthusiasts still alive who have memories of riding trams of the LUT 159 type! I would therefore have liked to have been at Crich for the first run, but I am due for Glasgow at Crich in September. I can’t manage both!

The first tram system; Birmingham Corporation Tramways operated a network of tramways in Birmingham from 1904 until 1953. It was the largest narrow-gauge tramway network in the UK, built to a gauge of 3 ft 6 inches. It was the fourth largest tramway network in the UK after London, Glasgow and Manchester.

There were a total of 843 trams (with a maximum of 825 in service at any one time), 20 depots, 45 main routes and a total route length of 80½ miles (129.6 km).[1]

Birmingham Corporation built all the tramways and leased the track to various companies.

Birmingham was a pioneer in the development of reserved trackways which served the suburban areas as the city grew in the 1920s and 1930s.

The Brill Tramway or Brill branch, originally the Wotton Tramway, was a far-flung and little used single-track section of the Metropolitan Railway in Buckinghamshire, England. It closed to all traffic on 30 November 1935.Plans for an Oxford, Aylesbury & Metropolitan Junction Railway to extend the line from Brill to Oxford, ten miles away, were drawn up in 1883, but never taken forward.

In 1888 Parliamentary powers for a similar scheme were obtained by the Oxford & Aylesbury Tramway Company, which took over the tramway in 1894. In December 1899 the Metropolitan acquired a lease on the line, but never took up an option to buy it.
The Brill Tramway was closed on 30 November 1935 by the London Passenger Transport Board, which, having inherited the Metropolitan in 1933, closed all stations beyond Aylesbury to passengers. Metropolitan services between Aylesbury and Quainton Road were reinstated from 1943 to 1948. Quainton Road closed to passengers in 1963.

The tramway was initially operated by horses, and by its own steam locomotives from 1872 until

This is Great Britain’s only remaining cable operated street tramway and one of only three surviving in the world. Operation of the tramway differs from the San Francisco system in that, like the Lisbon lines, it is a street funicular, where the cars are permanently fixed to the cable and are stopped and started by stopping and starting the cable.
The line was incorporated by the Great Orme Tramways Act of 1898 with authorised share capital of £25,000. Construction began in 1901. The line starts at the Victoria Station in Church Walks, Llandudno. The line is in two sections and passengers change cars at the Halfway Station. The lower section climbs the very steep Old Road and then via Black Gate and Ty Gwyn Road to the Halfway Station and has a maximum grade of 1 in 4. The line climbs 400 feet in about half-a-mile. It was opened for passengers on July 31st 1902. The upper section, opened in 1903, is less steep and climbs 150 feet in about the same distance.

info thanks to the Great Orme Tramway web site