Trams in West Bromwich

A fascinating collection of photographs giving a picture of life of what the West Bromwich Trams were like from the late nineteenth century until 1939.

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The first trams to be operated in West Bromwich belonged to the South Staffordshire Tramways Company, which began operating double-deck steam trams from Handsworth to Wednesbury in 1883, eventually extending the route to Dudley. Between 1885 and 1893 the Birmingham & Midland Tramways Company operated a route with steam trams between Bromford Lane and Spon Lane and these were somewhat unusually replaced by horse trams before the routes were electrified in 1903. The B&M also operated the Birmingham to Dudley service via Smethwick and Oldbury, which joined up with the Bromford and Spon Lane services. These were the foundations of the tram services that ran through the West Bromwich area and which were abandoned in 1939, the last of which was closed just after the outbreak of the Second World War.

In this book, David Harvey uses photographs from his collection to show the development of tram services over their more than fifty-seven years in West Bromwich and nearby Smethwick, Oldbury and Dudley.