End of the line for our trams
QUESTION
Decades before the creation of the Luas, there were tram lines leading from the city centre to Dalkey on the southside and possibly to other areas of the city. Why were these old trams abandoned?
IN its heyday, the old Dublin tramway system extended for over 100km and more than 300 trams were in use, but the arrival of double-decker buses in 1937 spelled the beginning of the end for the old trams.
The original horse-drawn trams started in Dublin in 1872; electrification wasn’t considered until the late 1890s, but by January 1901, the entire system, which radiated from the old Nelson’s Pillar by the GPO, had been electrified.
Trams had been run by several companies but these were merged into a single united tramways company, the DUTC, in 1881.
By the early years of the 20th century, the trams were regarded as technically innovative and public transport officials from cities all over the world came to Dublin to see how the tramway system was operated.
But three years after the new Irish Free State was set up, a new challenge to the trams emerged, single-decker buses. Ironically, it was the DUTC that launched buses in competition with its trams and the buses eventually put paid to the trams.
The first single-decker bus route in Dublin was the number 43, which ran from Eden Quay to Killester and started in July 1925. Then, just over 12 years later, in December 1937, the city’s first double-decker bus route started, the Number 50 from the city centre to Crumlin.
These new double-decker buses proved so popular with passengers that within a couple of years, the tramway company had over 200 in operation. By this stage, the DUTC was operating a monopoly, as in 1936, it had completed the takeover of all privately owned bus companies in Dublin.
Not only were the new doubledecker buses cost effective to operate, but they had a flexibility that the trams didn’t have. Many of the suburbs in Dublin were being developed and it was far easier to open new bus routes than build tram lines.
Not long after the Second World War started, trams were removed from many routes, in 1940, and replaced by buses, which could also carry a lot more passengers.
Two tram routes out of Dublin had already closed down. The steam tram to and from Lucan, which also for a time ran to Leixlip, had been electrified in 1900. But by 1927, it was considered totally uneconomic and was closed. In 1932, the steam tram from Terenure to Blessington and Poulaphouca had been shut. Years later, in 1959, the Howth tram ended because of all the losses it was making.
By 1947, CIÉ, the State company that took over the DUTC and the railways, was keen to replace trams with buses as soon as the latter became available. By this stage, the condition of the trams, the tracks and the overhead wires was so poor that it became impractical to operate the trams in Dublin for much longer.
In 1949, the last tram service from Dublin to Dalkey ended. By that stage, the Dublin bus fleet was made up almost entirely of double-decker buses.
The modern equivalent of the old trams, the Luas system, started in 2004. The Luas is much more cost effective and efficient than the trams ever were. These days, as well, Dublin Bus operates something like 110 routes.
In the old days, the trams were at the forefront of transport technology, But they soon got overtaken by new developments – specifically, double-decker buses, which more than anything else, were responsible for the demise of the old trams.
James McGuigan, by email.
QUESTION
Did Michael Crawford perform a sketch as Lord Byron?
MICHAEL Crawford is best known for playing hapless Frank Spencer in 1970s’ sitcom Some Mothers Do ’Ave ’Em and for his show-stopping performance in Andrew Lloyd Webber’s Phantom Of The Opera.
In 1964, Crawford played a fasttalking, no-nonsense motorcyclist called Byron for the satirical BBC TV series Not So Much A Programme, More A Way Of Life. Other than being an acute observer of human nature, Crawford’s character bore little resemblance to Lord Byron, the Romantic poet who was mad, bad and dangerous to know.
Crawford got the role while he was filming his break-out performance in Richard Lester’s The Knack . . . And How To Get It. Ned Sherrin, who was creating a sequel to his TV satire That Was The Week That Was, cast Crawford as a cool Liverpudlian character. He was a teenage Everyman, an observer of the human condition, like Holden Caulfield in JD Salinger’s Catcher In The Rye, analysing the social scene in a five-minute segment of the Sunday night programme.
The writing was sharp and quite shocking. In one monologue about waiting at traffic lights, Byron says: ‘There was a girl in the car, one of those debutantes. Y’know . . . she had an expression on her face as though she was thawin’ out a packet of peas between her legs.’
The character was briefly very popular and Byron had his own column in Fab magazine.
Caroline Fuller, Shropshire.
QUESTION
Are minors allowed to marry in most US states?
YOU may marry without parental consent on reaching the age of 18 in all states, except Nebraska, where the marriage age is 19, and Mississippi where it is 21.
However, there is a controversial loophole. In every state, exceptions to this rule are possible – the most common being when parents approve and a judge gives consent. There is no minimum marriage age in ten states: California, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Washington, West Virginia and Wyoming. Other states allow children to get married at 14 or 16 with parental consent. In the past 15 years, more than 200,000 minors have legally wed in the US, many marrying below the age of consent to sex in their states, including three 10year-old girls and a boy aged 11.
Mary Bronwyn, London E6.