Great Western Coffee Shop

All across the Great Western territory => Buses and other ways to travel => Topic started by: Reading General on January 26, 2021, 16:45:28



Title: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: Reading General on January 26, 2021, 16:45:28
As above. If a few systems remained till the point of deregulation, would they have been subject to the same conditions as all other bus routes? Or would they have had a separate situation because of their fixed path?


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: Bmblbzzz on January 26, 2021, 18:02:40
The obvious comparison would be with the trams in eg Croydon. Except that's London, so special bubble, and the systems in Manchester, Birmingham and Sheffield were post-deregulation. So Brighton?


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: Lee on January 26, 2021, 20:09:18
As an aside, there was - very briefly - an active modern non-heritage trolleybus during the reign of the architect of bus deregulation, Nicholas Ridley, in Blackpool during November 1983. (http://www.sct61.org.uk/gallery/trams/bp762a)


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: grahame on January 26, 2021, 22:25:51
There were 29 trolley bus systems in the UK at the start of 1960 and they had all gone by March 1972. So at that time, if they been deregulated / offered for commercial operation, I expect  anyone taking them on would only have done so to make what they could from the assets.

Fixed permanent way (above rather than below) so likely to have been similar to the Glasgow Subway or the Blackpool Tram in how they were treated?  As previously commented ... London a special case.


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: eightf48544 on January 27, 2021, 09:04:18
I think they would have been taken over and closed, there is a precedent the Swansea and Mumbles Tram was taken over by a bus company and promptly closed.


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: rower40 on January 29, 2021, 12:06:32
A colleague bought one of the redundant trolleybuses from Derby Corporation when the Derby system closed down.  He added a towbar, a trailer with a diesel generator, and a pair of LONG jump-leads to the pickup arms.  Bingo - an electric vehicle (zero-rate VED) with go-anywhere capability.  The generator in the trailer doesn't count for tax purposes.  (I don't know if he fuelled it with red diesel though - that might have been a step too far.)



Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: Hal on January 29, 2021, 12:24:50
Has anyone visited the Trolleybus Museum at Sandtoft near Doncaster?
Is it worth a trip?


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: chuffed on January 29, 2021, 13:51:29
All I know about Sandtoft is that it is inaccessible by public transport !


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: grahame on January 29, 2021, 14:35:17
All I know about Sandtoft is that it is inaccessible by public transport !

Difficult but not quite impossible - see ((here)) (https://www.sandtoft.org/directions). Been on my list of "places I want go to sometime" for some time.

Quote
By Bus

The only public bus service in the area is justgo North Lincs which runs out of Scunthorpe on weekdays and Saturdays. Journeys have to be pre-booked and there is no Sunday service. Details can be found on its website, https://www.justgonorthlincs.co.uk/

Every Saturday the Museum provides a connection to public bus services from Doncaster at Thorne; click here for details.

On Sundays marked "Free Bus" in the Events Calendar and Bank Holidays we run a free bus service from and to Doncaster Interchange and details can be found here.

Please note that the Museum's buses are historic vintage vehicles and have step entrances.


Title: Re: Speculation: Would trolleybuses have been subject to deregulation?
Post by: Hal on January 29, 2021, 16:30:47
Good for cycling, though. It's in the Isle of Axholme, so nice flat straight roads.
I used to cycle around there from Donny when I was a lad. That was pre-Trolleybus Museum.



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