London's Luxury Tram Named Bluebird - LCC1 - Riding ... And More

This film is primarily about London County Council tram No.1 which was launched in 1932.

This was a luxury tram designed to entice wealthy motorists to leave their cars at home - with pundits suggesting that was as opulent as a Rolls Royce! The plan was to use this tram as a test bed and then build a fleet of such tramcars.

Unfortunately however the 1933 creation of the London Passenger Transport Board (LPTB) and it having a desire to remove trams from London's streets scuppered LCC's plans and therefore this vehicle remained unique.

The withdrawal of trams from London started in the 1930s with trolleybuses replacing the trams, but was then halted during WW2. Trolleybuses are clean air / zero tailpipe electric buses. After the war diesel buses were used as replacements for the trams. The process was finally completed in 1952.

During the 1950's London experienced some very severe smogs in which many people died. A smog was fog combined with large amounts of air pollution derived from burning coal - especially for heating buildings. As a result the government introduced very strict air quality regulations designed to end the smogs, unfortunately as this was happening London Transport started replacing its 1800 clean air electric trolleybuses with diesel buses (especially Routemaster buses), thereby partially negating the benefits of the 1950s air pollution legislation. I do not have any 1950's footage so the 1990s footage from London's Oxford Street will have to suffice.

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This footage shows Bluebird at Crich Tramway Village / The National Tramway Museum shortly after its refurbishment and return to carrying passengers in September 2024.

Also seen are a few scenes from the East Anglia Transport Museum and 1990s footage of diesel Routemaster buses on London's Oxford Street.

Music: Lone Harvest by Kevin MacLeod (incompetech.com) License: CC-BY-3.0
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