4 TROLLEY BUSES

As more Aucklanders bought cars, the trams drew complaints that motorists found it awkward to navigate the roads with the trams running in the middle.
So the decision was made to convert the trams to trolley buses around the early 50s. Auckland’s sole remaining tram service is a 1.72km trip around the Motat museum at Western Springs.

The tramway replacement programme started in September 1949.

The first area to be converted to trolley buses was the Herne Bay tram route.
The trolley bus system used the majority of the old Tramway electrical system which was reaching 80 years old.

Trolley buses began being withdrawn in 1977 in favour of Diesel buses. On 28 September 1980 the ceremonial last trolley bus ran and the Auckland trolley bus system closed.

A change in policy within the Auckland Regional Authority saw the proposed new-generation trolley bus system abandoned in 1981, despite 20 new Volvo chassis with Ansaldo electrical equipment and Robosio overhead being ordered and delivered. The new buses were sold to Wellington City Transport and completed to their specifications. More recently they were sold and converted to diesel buses.
But even that early venture felt the wrath of Auckland’s fragile local body politics.

Historian Graham Bush tells on the Auckland City Council site how “the Council ran the nine-route 27 miles tramway system for a decade from 1919. It completed several major extensions and double-tracking and in the mid-twenties waged a vigorous war with private pirate buses, resolved only when transport licensing was introduced nationally in 1926, a year when the Auckland trams carried 63,000,000 passengers.

“Following a 1927 poll defeat of an expansion loan proposal, the whole question of isthmus public transport became enmeshed in inter-authority local politics. A Royal Commission of Enquiry held in 1928 recommended the creation of an independent directly-election Transport Board, a solution in which the disheartened City Council unenthusiastically acquiesced. The undertaking was transferred without compensation, John Allum, who chaired the City’s Tramways Committee, becoming the first chairman.”

The trolley bus routes expanded until 1960 with the conversion to trolley bus operation of the Onehunga route from diesel buses. At its height, the system covered 86 kilometres using 133 buses.

Wellington still has trolley buses.

Wellington still has trolley buses

HISTORY PART 5- MOTORWAYS

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