REVIEWS
Title: Leicester’s Trams and Buses — 20th Century Landmarks
Author: Andrew Bartlett
Publisher: Pen & Sword Transport
ISBN: 978-1-52673-249-1
Specification: 285mm x 220mm, 246pp, hardback
Price: £30
Andrew Bartlett, a valued member of the Leicester Transport Heritage Trust, has drawn on contemporary newspaper reports and the minutes of council meetings to piece together this account of five of the major landmarks in the development of the city’s public transport.
In five thoroughly researched and illustrated chapters, he describes the arrival and departure of its electric trams, the long saga leading to the construction of St Margaret’s bus station, and the uneasy relationship with Midland Red and its successors both over the 13 years after it arrived in the city in 1919 and the deregulated battles that ran for 14 years until Leicester CityBus was privatised in 1994.
The battles of the 1980s and early 1990s had their roots in the 1920s, when Midland Red reached Leicester and the corporation sought to protect the tram service that had been electrified in 1904. Corporation buses added to the mix from 1924 and matters became more contentious as both operators sought the right to serve new suburbs th…
