Final one-way ticket

It’s 60 years since Dundee’s last tram stopped running. Caroline Lindsay takes a look at the transport system which kept the city on track for almost eight decades.

At one minute past midnight on October 21 1956, Dundee’s last tram made its final journey, bringing a chapter of Dundee’s transport history to an emotional end .

A Courier reporter witnessed rousing scenes in Dundee’s streets, rivalled only by those seen on Hogmanay.

“I have never seen anything like it,” he wrote. “Hundreds of cars lining the streets, thousands of people milling around, cheering, waving and singing, fireworks lighting the scene – and all in the wee sma’ hours of a Sunday morning.”

The reason for the mayhem was the last tram run from Maryfield to Lochee – Car No. 23, the 39-year-old “baby” of the fleet, the last of a line which started 79 years previously with a horse-drawn vehicle trundling from Albert Square to Windsor Street.

Historian Norman Watson says: “Horse-drawn carriages gave way to steam propelled cars in 1877, which were superseded by electric trams in 1900, which in turn met a fierce rival in buses.”

Sam Bannerman, manager of Dundee Museum of Transport – which houses one of the last of the horsedrawn trams – explains that this mode of transport was far from ideal.

“Two major limitations were the costs of keeping the horses and, particularly relevant to Dundee, the horses’ difficulty in scaling hills,” she says.

By 1880 Dundee and District Tramways Company opened routes to Lochee, Stobswell and Baxter Park, all key areas of the large manufacturers in the city.

In 1899 Dundee Corporation bought out Dundee and District Tramways Company and a service of electric cars was launched on the Perth Road route in June 1900. By 1902, both horse and steam trams were replaced.

Cars de luxe

According to a sixpenny booklet published in 1936, the town’s trams, in their green and cream livery, were “lovely electrically-driven and electrically lit cars de luxe which we can now enjoy with so ample accommodation both inside and on the saloon on top, where one can smoke in comfort.”

Sam says: “Over the decades, the tram routes were expanded in line with the expansion of the city and the peak of the network was in 1932.

“But by 1951 many of the trams had not been updated and at least a third of the stock was over 50 years old.

“In addition, the city limits had extended beyond that of the tram route and the future of public transport in Dundee lay with buses.”

Norman adds: “At their peak in the 30s, 79 tramways were in operation around the city.

“But mid-20th Century Dundonians considered trams old fashioned, costly to run, too slow and an impediment to the growing volume of other traffic.”

Costly

A study led by transport consultant Colonel R McCreary showed the cost of trams compared with bus service was 26.700 and 21.204 pence per mile, respectively and that 95% of daily passengers preferred buses.

As a result, he advocated abandoning the tramway system.

So, in October 1956, the last trams were taken out of service and, on that evening of October 20, more than 5,000 people, many of them souvenir hunting, witnessed Car No. 23’s final journey to the Lochee depot, accompanied by the moving strains of We’re No Awa’ Tae Bide Awa’ and Will Ye No Come Back Again.

However, driver David Bates was more philosophical: “Ah well, that’s that. Ready to start in the bus driving school in the morning.”

All remaining cars were reduced to scrap by burning.

His one and only ride on a tram, at the age of five, left a lasting impression on Graham Martin-Bates, senior archivist at the Scottish Vintage Bus Museum in Dunfermline.

“We lived in Perth but because my parents knew the trams were soon to be withdrawn, I was taken on a day trip to Dundee and had a ride on one,” he says. “They had real character.”

Graham has a cartoon depicting the last tram’s journey: “The tram driver, inspector and members of the public are in tears and consoling each other,” he says.

“At least one man is raising his hat in respect for ‘the deceased’ and where the tram fleet’s number should be are the words ‘Your number’s up’.” clindsay@thecourier.co.uk

Ah well, that’s that. Ready to start in the bus driving school in the morning. DAVID BATES, FINAL TRAM DRIVER

Left: crowds watch as the final Dundee tram makes its way back to the Lochee depot. Above: one of the horse-drawn trams from an earlier era. Right: David Bates, who drove the last tram.