Doncaster's Electric Transport

The story of Doncaster's transport system from the early days of the trams to the 1960s.

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Doncaster had recently undergone its first major change from a small market town into a centre of industrial importance when trams first appeared in 1902. This change was due in no small part to the establishment of a large engine repair works in the town in 1852-3 by the Great Northern Railway Company. Around 1898, after having received a proposal from the British Electrical Company Ltd, the town council decided that it should have its own electric transport system and Doncaster's tram service was born. This profusely illustrated book with its factual captions and entertaining and informative text transports the reader back in time to the establishment and subsequent growth of Doncaster's transport system. It goes through the years of the First World War and beyond to a time when competition from motorbuses and other unscheduled services posed a serious threat to the now established tram routes, forcing the Corporation to make some far-reaching decision about the future of transport in the town. This ultimately led to the introduction of motorbuses and trolleybuses. The book goes on to take the reader up to the 1960s, by which time the trolleybus network had been abandoned in favour of a more flexible motorised transport system, which was better able to adapt to Doncaster's increasingly complex urban layout.