Started implementing support for public transit delays in Maps

https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/issues/917
https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/gnome-maps/-/merge_requests/619

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A very deliberate decline: the thread about the last days of the Edinburgh Corporation Tramway

This thread was originally written and published in November 2020. It has been lightly edited and corrected as applicable for this post.

On the 16th November 1956, (64 years ago, on this day when this was first written), at around 720PM, the last of the old electric trams in Edinburgh and Leith set off on their final journey.

A specially painted and illuminated car – no. 172 – had been touring the network for the previous week in an odd celebration of the future. Here is a colour photo of that car, taken at Shrubhill Works off Leith Walk.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/31685991143/

Edinburgh, Leith and Musselburgh’s tramway networks had grown steadily since the first line in 1871. Right up until the outbreak of war in 1939, the Corporation was still planning for its expansion. However, after the war, the network had very quickly gone through a politically-motivated crash course in running down in the 3 years from 1953-56. The last service to run was no. 23, from the Braids to Shrubhill depot via. Morningside Station.

In the 3 years to 1956, Edinburgh’s tram network was cut back from 28 routes to just 2 after the Council’s decision in 1951 to abandon the trams. The peak year was 1948, when 330 cars worked from 5 depots. The system was deliberately run into the ground and shut down at the peak of its efficiency and popularity. Contrary to popular narrative, it wasn’t clapped out; maintenance during the war was good, new rolling stock had been built and 1948 was a record year for passengers.

The Corporation shut down tram routes by “busification”; it had bought in large numbers of new buses, and they replaced the trams routes as they were withdrawn, running the same routes and numbers. Buses initially enjoyed a surge in use; but they were never as popular or convenient and people quickly abandoned them for personal cars. Despite the heroic efforts of Lothian Buses to run a quality bus service over the last 30 or so years since deregulation, they have never recovered their share of the market.

Over that short, 3-year run-down period, hundreds of trams were driven unceremoniously over the rails to Maybury to be hauled onto low loaders and taken by road to Connel’s in Coatbridge to be cut up.

After the line to Corstorphine was lifted, cars were loaded in north Leith, and when that too was cut back they directly left the gates of Shrubhill depot on the lorry.

In the ultimate indignity, the tram cars bodies were first set on fire to burn out the wooden components prior to salvaging the metalwork.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/49682181373/in/photolist-UJh1qf-2njsZxM-2dtBxkz-2iXCpFY-EtBt4z-2m6PKJ2-2hjDr2r-2iXy75u-2m6Uvat-2mUFbCi-2iVwVjy-2kJiZwM-2j33F8P-2kf6XBJ-84TYoF-2knRaCA-Mrkt8o-2h1KmbW-2ic9191-UCFFfN-2iXy7B1-2jiqpLb-2hANavn-28zcvao-6b3Hz9-cVVS2w-RrfTfg-STLCS9-absDCF-2kxkCCn-2kxpTia-2kxkCfD-bs4ErF-6qKUKt-8saQ3J-6qQ5Ny-ac2KcD-2kxpSXW-9KouVx-6qQ6fC-8saQ7u-6YFBzr-WzBvqM-8ZjJjr-avWkQZ-2iGfaC2-5s7bmB-dEVPHT-bnWsmD-SyKhyg

As soon as the services over a section of route were cancelled, the cutters came in to pull down the overhead wires for scrap. Shortly after they would come and lift the rails, or even just tarmac directly over them in some cases. One of the issues facing the tramway network was that it had the liability for repairs and maintenance of the carriageway on which the tram tracks were laid; this meant it not only had to do its own maintenance but was also facing a greater burden as a result of the increasing weight and volume of private motor vehicle traffic using the roads.

The trams very nearly got a temporary stay of execution due to the Suez Crisis (Glasgow did get a deferral in their run down for this reason), but the Council’s mind was set and not for changing. 16th November 1956 was to be the day. Here is a gloomily atmospheric photo of one of the last scheduled services on route 23, leaving Granton Square in the chilly murk of a cold November evening. The car looks bright and warm in contrast.

https://www.flickr.com/photos/127340508@N05/38687900281/

Special yellow ticket rolls were used in the final week with “LAST TRAM” printed on the back. The trams flew pennants from their current poles. Everyone and their dog took a final ride and requests were taken for invites on the last run.

On the final day, a restored horse bus (not a horse tram) appeared, hauled by two horses from the St. Cuthbert’s Cooperative Association’s delivery stable. Special tours were given and the crew wore vintage uniform.

By this time, services number 23 (Granton Square to Morningside via the Mound) and 28 (Newhaven to Braid Hills via Pilrig Street and Lothian Road) were all that remained, and ran as usual that day. People patronised them as usual, as if it was all a bad dream and they would wake up and get the tram again tomorrow as they always had done.

At 8 minutes past 6, an ominous figure appeared at Granton Road Station. It was a bus, running the first bus-replacement service 23. Trams continued to run as usual for the next hour and 21 minutes though. At 7:29PM the last service tram ran only as far as the Mound.

The remaining cars on the network and at Tollcross depot then turned out their lights and rolled their route and service numbers blinds to show a blank screen and headed quietly to Shrubhill depot for the last time. A pool of cars headed the other way to Braids terminus to start the special final runs. Ten cars made the run up to Braids, including that in the special “last week” livery. A further car, no. 217, left from Morningside Station “carrying town councillors and their invited guests“.

Huge crowds lined the route, and people came from far and wide to the Mound to see the convoy go down the hill. Buses had to be diverted and the trams were halted as the crowds were managed. The horse bus lead the way, pulled by a pair of white horses. The BBC were present. A brief ceremony was conducted at the foot of the Mound, when the Lady Provost handed over specially inscribed control keys to the crew of tram 217 carrying the councillors. They then ran onto Shrubhill, unceremoniously ejected their passengers, and rolled on into the depot by Dryden Street.

The crowds are reported to have been well behaved and there was no surge of souvenir hunters, but many people put pennies down on the tracks in order that they were flattened by the last trams. The switch was pulled in Shrubhill at 9:40PM and the traction current was turned off for the last time. The Scotsman ran an evening editorial wondering if “electric traction might not return again in time“. And out into the night went the gangs of workmen, and pulled down the cables on Princes Street, dug up the boarding islands. Early the following morning they started loading the final cars onto the scrappies’ lorries. Only one, No., 35, would survive to be preserved. For many years it lived in a small transport museum at Shrubhill Depot, but has now passed on to the Crich Tramway Museum.

So why was a popular, comprehensive and seemingly good quality system run down with quite such enthusiasm? There are a number of factors, a big one of which was money. The Ministry of Transport would not give or lend or allow the Corporation to borrow for required capital works. But another was will. Despite having cut his teeth on the Edinburgh trams, the General Manager W. M. Little had gone to St. Helens Corporation in 1941 – who had closed their tramway in 1936 and replaced it with a combination of diesel and electric trolley buses. He returned to Edinburgh in 1948, chomping at the bit of a bus-first future.

It was Little, the man in charge of the Corporation’s trams, who put forward a proposal in 1950 recommending that no further extension be considered and 25% of the route and services be replaced by buses. And Little had an ally in the form of Councillor George Learmonth Harkess, newly elected in 1949 to the Liberton ward for the “Progressives” (the small-c conservative, anti-Labour coalition who dominated Edinburgh politics into the 1970s.) Let’s be clear here that the Progressives were a municipal party and do not have a straight ancestral lineage with either the Conservatives (or Unionsts as they then were) or the Liberals who formed much of their core. It would be wrong and simplistic to lay the blame for the demise of the tramway at the foot of the current parties in that space.

Despite being a funeral director by trade Harkess found himself propelled into the chair of the Transport Convenor (or perhaps – it was appropriately?). Despite immense popular and press opposition, Harkess and Little between them conspired to carry the dominant Progressives with them and vote for scrapping. If one of the authoritative sources on the subject is to be believed, the tactics of the “antis” delved deep into “alternative facts” and steadfastly refusing to countenance any alternatives. There are certainly plenty of articles quoting Harkess and/or Little in the Edinburgh local papers at the time carrying a clear pro-bus, anti-tram rhetoric.

In a 1952 local election, the councillor for Dalry stood on an anti-tram ticket and lost his seat. Harkess, his job done, had stepped down from the Transport committee by this time. His unfortunate successor lost his seat at the 1955 election. With the Ministry of Transport financially strangling the Corporation though, they didn’t realistically have an alternative. They simultaneously had fares capped at a below-cost level – so were running a loss – and were unable to borrow for capital funding. Once the initial round of cutbacks were completed, total closure was inevitable as every time it was cut back, the financial position would just get worse and not better. Any economies of scale were lost, and the remaining tram services found themselves competing against the Corporation’s own buses.

I will leave this with a link to a wonderful 10 min home movie called “Into the Mists”, a colour record of the final few days of the network, preserved by the National Library of Scotland’s Moving Image Archive. You can watch it all for yourself and mull over a great public folly committed all those years ago.

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Those Magnificent Leith Men and their Steaming Machines: the thread about early steam-powered road transport

This thread was originally written and published in April 2019.

WHAT?!

“On the 3d of February, 1824, a patent was granted to T. Burstall and John Hill, of Leith, for a locomotive steam carriage; an account of which was first given in the Edinburgh Journal of Science“. “We think we are warranted in saying, that there is considerable degree of ingenuity, as well as originality, in many of the details, and also in the general arrangement of the machinery.”

Oh it gets better! “By the present improvements, the boiler is to be placed upon an additional pair of wheels, so that the whole machine may run upon six wheels instead of four.”

Isn’t this just the best thing?

Wait! Haud the bus! (Well, the steam carriage anyway). There’s more! In an effort to drum up support for their contrivance, Burstall & Hill went on a sales tour with a working scale model. Here’s the handbill (from the University of Glasgow’s Special Collection)

BURSTALL & HILL’S
PATENT
Steam Carriage Model

MAY BE SEEN AT WORK IN
THE BLACK BULL HALL
ENTRANCE BY VIRGINIA STREET

On Monday, the 7th January 1828 , and Following Days,
From 11 to 4, Afternoon, and by Gas Light, from 7 to 9.
Admittance, One Shilling.

From Grace’s Guide: “When the writer saw this interesting model at work, he was informed by the partner of Mr. Burstall, that it had, during the preceding 8 days, ran as many times round its circular course as amounted to 250 miles… and that during all that period it required no fresh packing or repair whatever. ” The best bit of the model of course is that the passengers were provided with complimentary yards of ale to chug”

Despite the sales effort, Burstall & Hill don’t appear to have had much success, it’s clear from just looking at the drawings that their design was impractical, and it was ahead of the limits of boiler, engine and wheel technology. In 1827, while exhibiting in London, the model overturned and injured Burstall’s younger brother. He submitted a design for the Rainhill Trials, “Perseverance” (a nod to his former Leith business partner?). It took 5 days to make it work and only made 6mph, but got a £25 prize.

By 1841, Timothy Burstall is recorded as an “Engineer and Dealer in Patents” in Somerset, with his sons Timothy Burstall (11) and Timothy Burstall (3). It’s not recorded why his sons had the same name or how he differentiated them! He died aged 84 in Glasgow, 1860. Hill moved to England, but what became of him is not clear. But that’s not the end of the story for Scottish experimentation in steam transport. Enter stage left, John Scott Russell (better known for building steamships and describing the Soliton wave).

Before he became better known, Scott Russell was a mathematics and engineering prodigy, teaching at the Leith Mechanics Institute at the age of 17. By 24 he was elected professor of Natural Sciences at the University of Edinburgh, although refused to stand for permanent employ. Concentrating on his engineering, Scott tinkered with boilers and steam engines, and came up with a method of constructing a flat-sided boiler (rather than a dome or cylinder) with internal stays. By 1834, success was sufficient that Scott Russell formed the Steam Carriage Company of Scotland to produce his perfected steam carriage. The square boiler can be seen slung under the wheels, with a 2 cylinder vertical engine on top.

Russell’s company built 6 carriages “well-sprung and fitted out to high standard“. From March 1834 they offered an hourly service from George Square in Glasgow to the Tontine Hotel in Paisley. An unheard of speed of 15mph could be made (Burstall & Hill could make 6mph). The Mitchell Library describes the machine. “carried up to 40 passengers… a crew of 3 green-uniformed men. The engineer sat above the engine and boiler at the rear… The fireman stood on the step below him… A steersman sat on the front perch …The carriage pulled a trailer which carried coal, water, and more passengers. Mechanically it may have been successful, but the carriages apparently upset the trustees of the turnpike roads, who felt they caused damage in excess of the charges paid.”

What happened next is a matter of conjecture, either the trustees deliberately obstructed the road to impede the carriage, or it was purely accidental, but in the Glasgow trades fair, a carriage hit an obstruction and overturned. The boiler failed and the explosion of steam killed 2 passengers and injured several more (note, the BBC attributes the below device to Goldsworthy Gurney, but it was a Scott Russell contraption). This is sometime attributed to being the first fatal automobile accident.

The service was withdrawn and 2 of Scott Russell’s carriages found their way to London for service there. The man himself quickly moved on to greater things, first the description of the Soliton (standing wave) and later as I. K. Brunel’s shipbuilder on the Great Eastern.

Scott Rusell’s time in Leith keeps up our connection between pioneering road steam carriages and the burgh, and there’s more to come! The next comes via the Kincardineshire town of Stonehaven in the form of Robert William Thomson, an engineer and inventor up there with Scott Russell and contemporaries in his imagination, inventiveness and skill. From a family of the new industrialist middle class, he was to be sent to the Kirk but being unable to master Latin he instead was sent to live with an Uncle in the United States where he apprenticed as a merchant.

Returning to Scotland in 1838, in between engineering apprenticeships, he taught himself chemistry, electrics, astronomy and mathematics and engineering with the help of an educated weaver. He settled in Edinburgh and his inventions and patents are a-plenty, including electrical detonators for blasting explosives, a self-filling fountain pen, a reversible washing mangle, a ribbon saw, an elliptical rotary steam engines and a hydraulic dry dock. Thomson also tinkered endlessly with improving steam engines and boilers to the point where they would (unlike the previous examples up this thread) actually be feasible for road transport.

Thomson patented the first pneumatic tyre in 1846. Not the vulcanised rubber tyre perfected by Charles Boyd Dunlop that we recognise now, but the first practical air-filled tyre. Thomson’s tyre was an inner tube of canvas rubberised with India Rubber which was encased in a stout leather outer tyre that was physically bolted to the rim of the wheel. It was ahead of the rubber technology of the time, but it worked in principal.

Frustrated by the shortcomings of his tyre, he turned instead to solid rubber tyres, and when he put these together with his advances in steam engines and boilers, he had a winning combination in the Thomson Road Steamer. The “tyres” were solid blocks of rubber attached all around the rim of the iron wheels. This allowed the heavy road steam engine to use the public road without damaging it and gave it the grip to get up inclines.

“But Thomson was a Stonehaven man living in the New Town of Edinburgh” you say. “What’s the Leith connection?” you ask. Well he had his road steamers built by T. W. Tennant at the Bowershall Iron Works in Leith, just off the Bonnington Road at (appropriately) Tennant Street.

Unlike those before him, Thomson’s Road Steamer actually really worked. To prove it, he had a rubber-wheeled Steamer called Enterprise hall a train of rubber-wheeled coal wagons of 40 tons from Dalkeith to Edinburgh. The contraption made about 8mph.

So it could pull coal, so what? Next, Thomson demonstrated its abilities in passenger haulage by pairing it with a bizarre, single-axle, double-decker carriage (with patented rubber wheels) and ran it between Edinburgh and Leith, the “New Favourite”

Weighing about 5 tons and with about 8 horsepower at its disposable, the Thomson Road Steamer could pull about 40 tons up the 1 in 18 gradient of Granton Road, or about 100 tons on the flat. “One morning a road steamer was taken down on to the sea sands at Portobello, and ran up and down there at the rate of ten miles an hour, the rain pouring all the time in torrents.“

Thomson’s machines, built by Tennant, were a global hit and were exported across the globe. He had worked for the Dutch improving their sugar refineries in the East Indies and they bought some for Java. The Indian government bought four of them too. Such was the success that Tennant’s couldn’t keep up with demand, and he also had them built by Robey & Co. in Lincoln, Ransomes, Sims & Head in Ipswich and Charles Burrell & Sons of Thetford. Ultimately, the solid India Rubber tyre although a success was an evolutionary dead end. It was extremely expensive and not particularly hard wearing. It was also useless when confronted with mud. But Thomson showed the way, and technology eventually caught up and allowed others to perfect a hard-wearing pneumatic tyre. Appropriately enough he’s commemorated in Stonehaven at a tyre-fitting garage.

Thomson died in 1873 and you’d think that would be the last of Leith’s connections with mad steampunk road machines. You’d think, but you’d be wrong! Enter “Mr Nairn, Engineer, Leith” and his patent 1871 steam omnibus!

Nairn’s bus is recognisably to modern eyes as a double-decker. Sure it’s only got 3 wheels and it’s got a boiler and pistons instead of a diesel engine, and a chimney that runs along the top deck and hangs out the back, but it’s all there. Nairn stuck with solid wheels, but tackled the problem of ride quality by using a relatively advanced suspension of leaf springs mounted on stacks of rubber washers (ahoy Moulton fans!). His 3-cylinder machine, Pioneer could carry 50 passengers in (relative) comfort at up to 12 mph. Nairn ran it between Edinburgh and Portobello and it could make 11 or 12 trips per day. “It is doing exceedingly well. No horse-drawn ‘bus is more under control than this one; its safety and capabilities of doing excellent work are beyond cavil, and invite investigation. Its general construction is a great step in advance.”

So why did this modern-looking, high-capacity, relatively fast and apparently successful steam bus remain a one-off for a single season? There are two reasons. The first is probably pure economics. In 1871, horse-hauled trams came in to use in Edinburgh. A horse consumed less in feed than a steam bus did in coal, a tram car was much cheaper to produce and horses were more reliable than proprietary steam engines. The second was more fundamental; the tramway had no legal running powers for mechanical traction.

You’d think that would be the last of Leith’s connections with mad, steampunk road machines. You’d think, but you’d be wrong! Enter “Mr Leonard J. Todd, Engineer, of Leith.” and his patent steam omnibus of 1872. Not only does it have 4 (yes, 4, count them all!) wheels, it has 2 funnels (1 a false one). And check out the opulence of the lower saloon.

Mr Todd insited that solid wheels were the way forward and could make a comfortable 20mph journey if they were appropriately sprung. He used a system of leaf springs, rubber washers and “volutes” (vertical spiral springs – not coils). I’m not convinced he was right to be honest. Todd also designed a “Silent Street Tramway Locomotive” which he said would be able to pull a train of two 40-passenger carriages up a 1 in 40 gradient at 10 miles an hour.

And he also designed a 3-wheeled, steam-powered post van called “Centaur”. Again solid wooden wheels and iron tyres. It was designed to pull mail and passenger in a carriage at “high speed” wherever rails couldn’t go. The technology was mainly lifted from railway practice, including such features as the wheels built up from wooden blocks to reduce vibrations.

Thank you to Becky Taylor for pointing me in the direction of Leonard J. Todd and his marvellous machines.

If you have found this useful, informative or amusing, perhaps you would like to help contribute towards the running costs of this site – including keeping it ad-free and my book-buying budget to find further stories to bring you – by supporting me on ko-fi. Or please do just share this post on social media or amongst friends.

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