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Huge crowds eagerly lined the
route, and people came from far
and wide to the Mound to see the
convoy go down the hill
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 eveningeditorial 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 Cllr George
Learmonth Harkess, newly elected in 1949 to the
Liberton ward for the “Progressives”.
Despite being a funeral director by trade Harkess
found himself propelled into the chair of the Transport
Convenor. Despite immense popular and press
opposition, Harkess and Little between them conspired
to carry the dominant Progressives with them and vote
for scrapping.
Read this and other stories on threadinburgh.scotA tram makes its way up
the Mound, 1950s