Birkenhead Talking Machine Depot

[epigramophone]

This charming street scene showing Borough Road, Birkenhead was photographed in about 1910. The delivery tricycle bears the HMV logo, and presumably belonged to the Talking Machine Depot with it's splended display of machines and horn carrying baskets.

The tricycle would be a real find for the HMV collector who thought that he had seen everything.

[snallast]

That is one beautiful photograph! Thanks for posting! Any chance of seeing it in a high resolution so one can look at details?

[Curt A]

That is one beautiful photograph! Thanks for posting! Any chance of seeing it in a high resolution so one can look at details?

Please...

[epigramophone]

That is one beautiful photograph! Thanks for posting! Any chance of seeing it in a high resolution so one can look at details?

Please...

Unfortunately I don't have the original photo, and the downloaded image loses resolution when enlarged, but it is such an evocative scene that I posted it anyway.

The dog casually standing in the middle of the roadway is an indication of the traffic density in those days. Not a motor vehicle in sight.

[Henry]

Not a motor vehicle in sight.

Nor a trolley (tram, to you). Note evidence of overhead wires and tracks in street.

[epigramophone]

Most cities and many large towns in the UK had tramways, but they rapidly disappeared after WW2. Glasgow was the last city to lose them in 1962, but since the 1990's new systems have started to appear with trendy sounding names such as "rapid transit".

The old trams still survive in the Lancashire seaside resort of Blackpool, where they have become a much loved tourist attraction.

[Henry]

Yes, the Blackpool operation is well known to us trolley fans (note my avatar!). I'm delighted to hear that it's still in operation. Someday I hope to revisit the mother country and ride the cars!

Near me in Philadelphia there are six trolley lines, the remnants of a very large urban system, still operating on the streets, five of them using modern Kawasaki equipment; the remaining one uses restored cars from the immediate post-WWII period. In addition there are two suburban lines using Kawasakis. Plenty of action for street railway nuts like myself!

Henry

[howardpgh]

Slightly Off-Topic,
Henry,
In Pittsburgh we called them Streetcars.
They were big red cars. I used to ride them to go Downtown from East Liberty.

[clevelander]

Henry refers to a tram as a "Trolley".
In Britain trolleys were electric busses running on overhead lines, but no tracks.
They were in use in a neighbouring town until the 1970s, and I always thought they were the best of both worlds: Clean electric, but no rails in the road.
In the event of a problem they could disconnect from the power and travel some miles on batteries.

[Henry]

Interesting posts. Howard, in New Orleans, and throughout the southern US generally, the word "trolley" is not used---they're "streetcars" (Tennessee Williams got it right).
Clevelander, what you describe are called "trolley buses (coaches)" or "trackless trolleys" over here.

The word "tram" has been (inconsistently) used in North America to mean a logging railroad or a mining railroad, i.e., a railroad in some such industrial setting. "Tram" has never been commonly used to describe a street railway passenger car in public operation.

BTW, "trolley" can only mean an electrically-powered (usually from overhead wires, but rarely by underground conduit third-rail) street railway or interurban, whereas "streetcar," the older term, can apply to any street railway car, including, originally, horse- or mule-drawn cars (but not cable cars, which are simply, well, cable cars!).

Welcome to the richness and variety of the English language as she is spoke by the transportation industry!