Last Days Of Trolleybus 666

The 666 last journey to Edgware then back to Colindale for breaking.

[@ROCKINGMAN]

It was a sad day in 1962 when the trolleybus finally ran on London's streets. One door closes and another opens. Out goes the trolleybus, but look at what replaced it. The AEC LT, Park Royal designed Routemaster. Now things don't seem so bad. The Routemaster - probably the greatest public conveyance of all time!

[@alanmusicman3385]

Never rode the 666 - but as a young kid lived in Winchmore Hill in north London, so rode the 621 Tolleybus route quite a lot. The things I most remember of them are that they accelerated really agressively and cornered really fast compared to later busses. I now realise that it was a combination of electric traction and double back wheels supporting the low-centre of gravity provided by the bank of batteries under the back of the bus that made all that possible. For some reason I think of these things as greyhounds - perhaps the double back wheels relating to the powerful back legs of those dogs? My other abiding memory is that - a number of times - the pickup arms came off the wires and the crew had to reattach them with long wooden poles that slid out from under the bus.

[@keithworsfold2689]

I was a driver the country area in the 70s and 80s and remember the older Greenline drivers saying you didn't try and pass a trolley if it was pulling off a stop as the acceleration was incredibly, I always liked to sit behind the driver, I suppose I must have wanted to be a bus driver even then, at about ten years old, but my memory was of the hypnotic sound of the wipers, I suppose they sounded so noisy because the trollies were so quiet.

[@fredneecher1746]

So sad to see what happened to those beautiful trolleybuses. They bring back such good memories. And the bare bulbs along the upper deck! They wouldn't last five minutes today.

[@Buzzer365]

They didn't last long in the day, either. Tthe voltage was wrong for use at home, but they did make a good 'bang' when thrown from the bus window.

[@davidnew4630]

I remember in the early sixties engineers were dismantling the overhead cables. London Transport made the biggest mistake in discontinuing the trolley buses.

[@geoffbarry9540]

I can just about remember the trolleys at West Croydon interchange. Always thought they were the bee's knees in terms of design, fitness for use and today, of course, if they were still around, eco-friendliness. Was therefore gobsmacked in May 2002 to look out of our hotel window in Vancouver Canada to see single deck trolley buses happily running down the street below us and around the corner. And, of course, living in Melbourne for many years and being originally from Croydon, there are always trams. But for me, bring back the TBs. Last but not least of course, great footage and compilation from Wilf, who I have watched for many years now..

[@davidnew4630]

London Transport made a big mistake by withdrawing the Trolley Buses from London in 1962.

[@IanDrummond-yq5cx]

I rode the 666, 645,, and 664 ...which was extended from Cricklewood to Edgware rush hour times...to school from West Hendon Broadway to Burnt Oak,Watling Avenue...1957-62...I recognise all the places in the film; where the 666 turns round at Edgware was a cafe that the crews used; when we bunked off school we used to go in there and join them for tea; always preferred to ride a trolleybus to the 142 which covered the same route and was an RT....the Edgware Road,...and inhabitants, look nothing like that now.

[@davidbradley9785]

A most impressive film. Perhaps a 100 years later we might see grid feed vehicles back on our streets.

[@frankevett8119]

My late father who was a Londoner said you could run after a diesel bus if you was pulling away but you didn’t bother trying with a trolley because they accelerated so quickly😀

[@doloresmyatt9737]

142 bus from watford my brother would feel sick so we would get on a trolley bus at canons corner to hendon and he felt fine.trolley buses would help to stop london lung as they have no exhaust pipes and so keep the hospital wards clear.

[@MikeGMcDermott]

Ironic that my part of London (ie Wimbledon and Raynes Park) was the first part of London to get trolleybuses in September 1931 as well as being the place where London's last trolleybus set off from on its one-way journey from Wimbledon Town Hall to Fulwell Depot on the late evening of 8th May 1962. A criminal waste of what was once the world's largest trolleybus system back in 1940 - and would have been even larger had the tram-to-trolleybus conversions in South and South-East London been the case had World War 2 not intervened.

[@DaveinLeeds]

It's quite amazing to think that the biggest trolleybus system in the world (?) came and went in just 31 years.

[@davegeros9314]

So clean, efficient and quite, should of kept them.

[@derekheeps1244]

Yes they were so quiet that they were known as the ‘silent killers’ due to people not hearing them approach and stepping out in front of them . Could have been fixed and yes they should have kept them

[@michaelross8273]

Perhaps they'll make a comeback

[@Buzzer365]

The mass of overhead wires and inability to detour off route was not very good.

[@ricktownend9144]

@@Buzzer365 not necessary everywhere nowadays, with back-up batteries.

[@tattyshoesshigure5731]

Very evocative footage... one of my abiding memories is of visiting Colindale depot & seeing all the trolleybuses 'sticks up' waiting to be dismantled. I was a 12 year old bus spotter way back then, but that sad sight is still indelibly printed on my memory!

[@colinmallett4681]

We probably knew each other. Mad on busses. We are the same sort of age - attended RGJM primary school then KCGS and Willesden Tech.

[@tattyshoesshigure5731]

@@colinmallett4681 we could have met outside a bus garage somewhere! I lived in Mill Hill back then & used to go on a Red Rover every weekend bus spotting with a mate & an Ian Allan ‘ABC’ London Transport booklet. Seeing ‘Pre-war’ RT’s was the excitement back then... soon to be replaced by attractive girls lol!

[@Trigger47W12]

I remember it well sneaking under the fence at Colindale on Saturday afternoons I still have some bell pushes and a staircase mirror !also went down to Fulwell for the last day I was 13.

[@retiredinthephilippines]

Wow, I was born and lived in The Greenway (I'm 75 now) only 5 minutes from Colindale depot. Went to Barnfield school. We also would sneak under the fence on Sundays to have a nose around. A bit of trivia from my mum and dad who were there during ww2. Apparently a Bofas gun was stationed in the depot. Not sure if it was ever s fired in anger....Migrated to Australia in 1971 till 2020 and now live in the Philippines with my wife.

[@tattyshoesshigure5731]

@@retiredinthephilippines That’s quite a journey you’ve made from Colindale… I only managed to get as far as Finchley before retiring to sleepy Chichester! Interesting story about the Bofors gun… Colindale was quite industrialised during the war years, so I guess having some anti-aircraft weaponry located there makes sense.

[@steverogers2369]

I remember seeing these being broken up at Colindale. I lived in Stanmore at the end of the line and they would turn round at the Station on the roundabout.

[@elnafinn]

Interesting to watch as the trolleybus passed our door

[@Buzzer365]

Passed the top of my street too.

[@juliesmith5567]

Good again with the picture typhoo tea and surely looks like blakkie on on the busses loverly watching

[@user-ky6vw5up9m]

Uncle was a clipper. In the smog he walked in front to help guide the driver. however he guided the bus into Kingston Hospital and too far from its wires. He asked passengers for volunteers to help push back on wires within distance of its wires.

[@funfox8133]

Ironic that trams and trolleybuses had been doing carbon neutral/green transport since the 1920s!

[@Reddsoldier]

Even more so when you realise cities up and down are replacing buses with... Trams.

[@theGoldenBlimp]

Where do you think electricity comes from? Sure, the carbon emissions happens elsewhere, but they still happen. Cleaner cities, yes, but not carbon neutral.

[@funfox8133]

@@theGoldenBlimp not true. Yesterday, Britain was carbon neutral with all power generated from renewable sources. And that's the direction it's going.

[@Reddsoldier]

@@funfox8133 Shh don't tell him that renewables and fission/fusion(eventually) are the future!

[@paulnolan1352]

Just goes to show, it’s all been done before.

[@Froggie24546]

As a young delivery boy on a bicycle was tipped off my bike which had a dustbin on the carrier at the front as a trolleybus silently zipped past quite close to the kerb near to the Cricklewood bus garage , luckily escaped with a few scrapes but a dented dustbin , which the customer refused to accept so had to take it back the .Fowlers hardware store on Cricklewood Broadway .. Boss not happy , had to take a new one back to customer !

[@martincook318]

I'm 67 in December and I lived in the Walsall area and we had them in the late 1950's and early 1960's and they were Murder and the last one's Ran from Walsall to Wolverhampton in 1967 from the top of the town Because of the Motorway which I Remember being Built and the Rest were Decommissioned in October 1971 and they were terrible with the High steps and the Bus Conducteres having to change the wiring in the Winter and when they went no one cried and everyone was glad to see the back of them

[@jeanetterobertson6744]

Fantastic environmentally friendly travel, sadly missed

[@robtyman4281]

Hammersmith looks so different and do much nicer without the awful Broadway Centre that replaced alot of buildings seen here. They all went in the late 80's to make way for it.

[@tomc1625]

My father used to drin N My father used to drive trolleys out of h Hammersmith dept. l also believe they Only had one rear light as they were classed as light rail

[@harrybarrow6222]

I am old enough to remember trolleybuses - and London trams. We switched to fossil fuel buses because they were more flexible and cheaper. No overhead wire infrastructure needed to be installed on new routes. Now we need to return to electric vehicles because of the damage fossil fuels are causing. I also remember steam engines in the 1940s and 1950s. And coal as a primary domestic fuel. London buildings were black from the soot emitted. After the Clean Air Act that forced a shift to smokeless fuel (coke), buildings could be cleaned and London looked much better.

[@Steven_Rowe]

So we got in bed with oil companies. I have never ever worked out why in the UK trams and trolleybuses went out of fashion yet in mainland Europe they flourished and still do.

[@jeanetterobertson6744]

So called progress

[@trevordance5181]

@@jeanetterobertson6744 It is indeed a shame that the trolleybus systems in London and elsewhere in the UK were scrapped when they were. I can just about remember riding on Trolleybuses as a small boy, being born in 1955, and they did silently wizz along without leaving a trail of fumes behind them. However, what with the advance in electical power systems especially that of rechargeable batteries I doubt we'll ever see trolleybuses reintroduced, as electically powered "green" buses of the future will no longer need miles of what is to many eyes unsightly overhead wires, not to mention the upkeep and maintenance of all the associated infrastructure.

[@robtyman4281]

We got so much wrong between the late 50's and late 70's. Seems most politicians of now are only realising the catastrophic mistakes made by their forebears. Politicians back then mostly hated all public transport, but particularly trams.....even more than trains. Only the insane, the dumb, and the crooked would replace clean and efficient electric trams and trolleybuses with diesel vehicles belching smoke and harmful particulates into the air. We really lost our way big time in the 60's and 70's. So much for the 'swinging sixties' ....... the only thing that swung was the wrecking ball.

[@Steven_Rowe]

@@robtyman4281 to make matters worse it not only he dim dark past. In Wellington in New Zealand they had trolleybuses and modern ones too,, Wellington is also very hilly and yet in 2017 they got rid of them and some of the buses were I believe converted to battery. But then the same type of people want light rail. I simply do not get it. Firstly let's call a spade a spade, they are trams and trams not only require overhead wiring and track so that is costly. In Newcastle NSW we have trams with batteries, every stop they raise the pantograph,to charge the battery as the batteries only last for two stops . I think the world has gone seriously mad, batteries don't last and they can't be good for the environment, what is wrong with a few wires

[@Miquel-ew1nw]

Great film, but sad. Does anybody knows the date of last operation ? Thank You.

[@chrisbailey4254]

What a fiasco both the dismantling and withdrawal ?? Now we have these new buses etc yeah rite.

[@skellertons113]

At 3.58, see the Woman Conductor's badge, it is a Metropolitan Stage Carriage badge with I think a brown edge and the letter T above the number. A Driver's badge had a blue edge. Not many of these survive as the crews had to surrender them in exchange for PSV, (Public Service Vehicle) badges ,(letter N in London, red edge for Drivers, green for Conductors) when their depots became bus garages. Drivers had to pass a new test. The Crews on these buses worked harder than their diesel bus colleagues. The Driver not only had to look at the road ahead, but the road above, and pay attention to the wires, not straying too far off course to avoid a de wirement, meaning that the bamboo pole with the hook on it had to be pulled from its storage point under the back of the bus, and used to put the trolley pick ups back on the wires, hoping the booms had not been bent, making the incident having to be reported, nobody,( even these days), wants to have to see the manager. The Conductors had to deal with up to 70 seated Passengers plus standing ones,(all cash tickets then with fare stages) whilst the RT motor bus had 56 seats, and the RM, 64. At junctions where the bus had to turn left or right, the Conductor had to get off the platform and pull the "frog" handle on a roadside post, this changed the points up above to allow the trolleys to go in the desired direction. I notice the trolleybus on the film being from SE Stonebridge Park Depot, later becoming a garage, and closed in 1981, merging with Middle Row Garage,(X) to become the new Westbourne Park Garage.

[@Krzyszczynski]

The trolleybus network in Wellington NZ had some of those "Frog" signs (with a 15km/hr speed limit). I always wondered what they meant. Now I know! (But the trolleybuses have now gone from there, too.)

[@uktruecrime]

Satans own bus route!!! How did it get across the River Styx?

[@nigeledward-few4846]

Getting rid of proper electric powered vehicles was one of the biggest mistakes in recent transport history. The borismaster hybrids have proven to have been a massive and expensive failure.

[@None-zc5vg]

Our Houses of Parliament have proved to be a massive and expensive failure.

[@Krzyszczynski]

Not a hard-hat nor a hi-vis to be seen anywhere in that last minute or so where they're dismantling the buses.

[@user-ke3gd7vz8l]

*احب فيديوهات مثل كذا*

[@marcc3514]

Electric buses. Who'd have thought?

[@johnwestwood1043]

The lunatics in charge of the asylum today insist that we have to have similar vehicles now, built at vast cost, using huge batteries instead. They'll put overhead wires above the M1 so that trolley-lorries can use them, but they can't put them up where ordinary folk would get better, quieter, non-polluting travel. Remember that at the next General Election.

[@joannecrosby493]

Still used in the EU

[@darylcheshire1618]

Is it true that they were very heavy and damaged the roads?

[@johnhooper7040]

How shortsighted this seems today with the benefit of hindsight. replacing electric, quiet, non-polluting trolleybuses with noisy diesel busses spewing fumes!

[@paulnolan1352]

Well I don’t think hindsight has anything to do with it, we tried telling them at the time but as usual nobody would listen.

[@madandy3176]

The windows at 7.31 indicate that is not a london trolleybus

[@Buzzer365]

They scrapped trolleybuses from all over at Colindale.

[@madandy3176]

@@Buzzer365 The swines.

[@marcc3514]

@@madandy3176 YEP. Living near there, I used to get into the site and try and smash their windows. What did I know? Brilliant things to ride. Spacious and quiet and non polluting. Ho hum...

[@Buzzer365]

@@marcc3514 Merit House has been there for the longest while now, I'm just around the corner myself. They still have a tram shed in the local Silkstream park.

[@joannecrosby493]

And no bus lanes

[@haweater1555]

3:35 "The Day the Earth Caught Fire" sounds like yet another cheesy sci-fi film of the era, but it had fairly good reviews: en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_the_Earth_Caught_Fire

[@Buzzer365]

Probably be on Talking Pictures TV soon

[@sonugrover95]

Jo london mai 50 saal phale tha wo hamare yha 100salo bad bhi hone ki ummid nhi hai

[@kopynd1]

cant beat the old school

[@mickd6942]

Route 666 !

[@Buzzer365]

To hell & back.

[@florjanbrudar692]

You're telling me there once was an English trolleybus route numbered 666? Also, when was this?

[@Buzzer365]

Yes, and I live on what was it's route. This was May 1962.

[@ricktownend9144]

I think all the London trolleybuses had route numbers in the 600 series

[@PopeLando]

There's a Monty Python sketch which involved an RT bus which had the reg OLD 666 and I read a comment on that where someone thought it was significant. Nothing other than a coincidence of course. Nobody other than fundamentalist Christians even knew about 666 before The Omen.

[@Suprahampton]

​@@PopeLando that was the "No body expects the Spanish Inquisition"

[@fredneecher1746]

@@ricktownend9144 500 as well. Where I lived (Walthamstow) we had the 697, the 699 and the 557 (to Liverpool Street Station). Nearby was route 555.

[@timexironman100m]

Kinda ironic now...electric buses and cars etc are the way forward in our ever changing worlds

[@jimward8095]

These were great...another disasterous mistake by LT?

[@Buzzer365]

From Wiki "Comparison to motorbuses Difficult to re-route - Aesthetics - Dewirements - Unable to overtake other trolleybuses - Higher capital cost of equipment - . More training required Overhead wires create obstruction -

[@ricktownend9144]

@@Buzzer365 none of that really applies now: back-up batteries and auto-rewiring pads (see Vancouver) make re-routing/extensions possible. De-wirements are incredibly rare in modern systems. Higher capital cost - see Buses magazine (Dec 2021 issue): Phil Stockley lists the capital costs and major hassles setting up for battery recharging. I don't think training really is an issue. Obstruction? - maybe somewhere there are statisics about how many out-size loads are carried through urban areas. Unable to overtake: (a) not true - broken-down trolleybuses simply dewire to let others overtake, and express services (rare) can be arranged with a small amount of extra wiring giving lay-byes; (b) in general, not overtaking is a benefit - most regular bus users have experienced being left behind by the bus they want overtaking a bus stopped just ahead of it and failing to see that passengers were waiting: just doesn't happen with trolleybuses! Thanks for this great video, by the way!

[@myjay41]

Spent millions replacing them with polluting buses now we'll probably have to spend billions putting them back in, very short sighted of London Transport, talk about vandalism!!!!

[@ccdd24]

Did i see a tax disc at 4.59 . An electric bus with a tax disc.Perhaps electric cars should pay car tax, 1 -they are a car -2 they contribute to road wear and tear-3 they still create congestion.4 help pay towards road maintenance.

[@wordsmith52]

Yes, trolleybuses had their own tax class I think. The one shown expired 31 December 1961, even though it was still being used on the road on 3rd January. The Winter of 1961-62 saw some snow, and I recall seeing trolleybuses on West Hendon Broadway with their rear wheels sliding on the road as they accelerated from rest. I wasn't fully aware that these would be the last ones I would ever see again that Winter.

[@paulnolan1352]

I agree, I think they will start charging properly for electric vehicles once the novelty wears off and there are more of them.