Monday 4 October 2010

Ah,nostalgia

An activity I enjoy is browsing in shops selling second-hand books. Many a time I have visited Hall's in Tunbridge Wells and no holiday of mine is complete without a visit to the local second-hand book shop(s).

My particular interests are transport history - roads, canals, railways and industrial history.

My most recent acquisition is volume entitled Liverpool in the age of the tram. What is interesting is the photographs of street scenes in the 1950s: the clothes people wore, the very few cars on the roads, the advertisements and of course the trams.

Trams disappeared in the UK, apart from Blackpool in the 1960s. Now we are busy building new lines; Croydon, Sheffield, Manchester, Birmingham and Nottingham all have systems and other towns and cities wish to follow, although the economic climate will put many a scheme on the back-burner.

The Docklands Light Railway is really a tram system and was the chosen means of rejuvenating the economy in East London.

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