Title: British Trolleybus Systems Wales, Midlands & East Anglia
Author: Peter Waller
Publisher: Pen & Sword Transport
ISBN: 978-1-39902-248-4 S
pecification: 290mm x 225mm,150pp, hardback
Price: £30
This completes Peter Waller’s fourvolume summarised histories of the UK’s trolleybus systems. We reviewed the Yorkshire book in August Buses and those on the north of England, Scotland & Northern Ireland and London & south-east England in December. It covers 14 systems in the area sandwiched in between: five in south Wales, seven in the West and East Midlands and two on the east coast. Three — Llanelly & District, Notts & Derby and Rhondda — were operated by companies rather than councils or corporations. Three also had short lives: Rhondda’s single route for fewer than three months from Christmas 1914 until an undetermined date in March 1915; Aberdare’s from January 1914 to July 1925, its original eight-vehicle fleet reduced by then to three; and Chesterfield’s one route from May 1927 to March 1938.
Others were among the longer lived ones. Wolverhampton, which bought more new trolleybuses (354) than any other operator outside London, ran them for over 43 years and had one of the …
