Edinburgh Corporation Tramways - Closure

Closure

Edinburgh Corporation introduced its first motor bus in 1914. In 1928, given the increasing importance of buses, the Edinburgh Corporation Tramways Department was renamed the Edinburgh Corporation Transport Department.

Following World War II, all municipal tramways in the United Kingdom (with the sole exception of the Blackpool tramway) were progressively closed and replaced by diesel buses.

Initially, Edinburgh Corporation took advantage of the closure of other systems to buy displaced, modern, secondhand trams - notably from Manchester. Nevertheless, a programme of replacement of trams by buses was introduced in the early 1950s. Edinburgh's last tram operated on 16 November 1956, terminating at the Shrubhill Depot on Leith Walk (archive film footage exists of the event). As a curious feature at Shrubhill an underground chamber exists where the cable did an abrupt turn into the garage. This chamber held a man, who had the unenviable job of sitting inside, ensuring that the cable did not snag.

One tramcar has been preserved - number 35, built in 1948 - which was put on display in a small museum at the Shrubhill Depot for a number of years. The museum eventually closed in the 1980s due to a leaking roof. Tram number 35 operated briefly at the Glasgow Garden Festival in 1988 and on the Blackpool tramway, before going into retirement at the National Tramway Museum in Derbyshire where it remains on display today.

The main reason for the move to buses was the inflexibility of the tram routes should problems occur (one accident could bring the whole system to a halt).

When buses replaced trams they followed the same routes previously taken by the trams and used the same route numbers. This led to some anomalies which still exist in 2010, such as the absence of buses on the Pleasance—a major city artery—which was too steep at its northern end for trams.