The Litherland Tramway part 3

2.The Electric Tramway

ELECTRIFICATION TO LITHERLAND:
In November 1903, Lt.Col. Von Donop officially inspected the Litherland Tramways but would not allow the line to be used because he was unhappy with the position of the wall between the shed and the railway bridge.
After all that had gone before in the way of delays to the line, this was quickly rectified and on the 11th December the Linacre electric service was extended to the top of Bridge Road. In 1904 Litherland depot was brought into electric service.

BRIDGE ROAD EXTENSION:
On the 21st March 1910 the line was extended down Bridge Road
to a new terminus at the railway bridge by Seaforth & Litherland
station. This station is on the Liverpool to Southport line, which at
that time had been recently electrified too. A branch off this line joined up with the line coming up from the docks and also crossed the tramway by the depot on Linacre Road. This branch connected the Southport and Aintree lines and there was a station, appropriately called Linacre Road, alongside the tram depot.

GOING FIRST-CLASS:
On the 1st July 1912, an entirely new route was introduced as a First-class service between Litherland and Lime Street via Cazneau Street, using tramcars painted in an all-over livery of cream with gold lining. Seven cars were being used on the route in 1914 but all First-class services throughout the city came to an end on 5th April 1923. Route numbers had been introduced in 1913 and the Lime Street-Litherland service was designated route no.28. The Pier Head to Litherland service became no.16.

In 1929 it was estimated that £2,406 would be needed to "extend and alter track at Litherland Terminus" which presumably resulted in the track at the lower end of Bridge Road being extended round into Wellington Road.

THE BUS:
Competition arrived on the 11th May 1929 when buses of the Merseyside Touring Company commenced operations in Litherland, the trams losing a considerable number of passengers.
In 1933 Liverpool Corporation introduced a new livery of green and white (ivory) to replace the red (or crimson lake) and cream.

LITHERLAND DEPOT (part 2):
During 1934 it was planned to extend the depot again and incorporate provision for buses. In February 1935 the General Manager's report stated that the depot had provision for 41 tramcars and no buses. The intention was to have a proposed 62 cars and 20 buses. However, Litherland remained tram only until conversion time. Between 1935-8, new canteens were built and facilities modernised. Around 1935 this section of Linacre Road was made wider, resulting in the setting back of the frontage of the old horsecar depot. Again the premises were extended northwards to accommodate another 40 tramcars on 8 new roads. Two houses, which the tramway owned, needed to be demolished to make way for this extension. The existing 8 roads were upgraded to take 40 cars of the now average length of 36ft. (previously 28ft.) The depot was finished off with an up-to-date frontage including an administration building and the total cost was about £40,000. On 29th June 1939 the reconstructed depot was officially opened and on 11th July additional cars for routes 17, 18, 18A, 30 and 31 were brought in. Litherland was the only depot on the system which connected to a single-track tramway.

WARTIME:
The heavy bombing inflicted on the area during WW2 played havoc with tram services. In May of 1941 the city centre was almost destroyed and services were severely disrupted, but by mid-June the 16s were running through to the Pier Head again. In the outer parts the most severe damage was inflicted by the bombing of the railway bridge in Stanley Road at Bankhall, then as now a major thoroughfare surrounded by acres of railway. On the 12th January 1942, a temporary bridge enabled services 24 and 28 to run to Lime Street, but because the layout of the track did not allow a curve from Commercial Road into Stanley Road, a 16 was run from Pier Head to Kirkdale Station. Because of the war the lease of the Bootle lines, which should have expired on 30th June 1942, was continued indefinitely . A normal service on route 16 was not resumed until the 6th January 1947, Kirkdale Station cars continued as 16A until 23rd August 1947.

For more about the blitz.....

FROM TRAMS TO BUSES:
In 1948 negotiations regarding abandonment of the tramway started. Liverpool owned the Litherland track so there should have been no trouble, but Liverpool Passenger Transport Committee contained two members appointed by Bootle Transport Committee which also represented Litherland UDC. Although Bootle no longer wanted the trams, they wanted full recompense from Liverpool for releasing them from their obligations. Negotiations with Ribble Motor Services Co. were also taking place. In the end Bootle had to accept Liverpool's terms, and a settlement was agreed early in 1950.

Running to a terminus at South Castle Street since 12th December 1948 to allow track in Cazneau Street to be discarded, the 23, 24 and 28 routes, having already lost revenue as a result, were then reduced in frequency in 1950 because of the state of the rails in Stanley Road.
Work on altering Litherland depot to acccomodate buses had not started on account of the protracted negotiations so the 16, 23, 24, and 28's continued to run until 2nd December 1950.

Although this was effectively the end of the Litherland services, the depot had to remain open a few more weeks as some of the Seaforth routes were still in operation. The 17 route was converted on the 31st December 1950, leaving 18 as the only all day Bootle route, with 18A, 35, 36, and 37 at peak hours. These were all replaced on the 11th February 1951, except for the 35 which continued until Thursday 15th February when the official Last Car ran in Bootle, with some ceremony. Did Litherland's last tram go un-noticed?

Wellington Road terminus still visible in the 1970s.

Other Litherland Tramway pages and links:

INTRODUCTION / THE HORSE CAR YEARS / THE ELECTRIC TRAMWAY
ROUTE MAP

for more about Liverpool Trams visit
Ron Smith's Liverpool Tram Website
and try the database at:


to learn more about Litherland, try Litherland Town Website - contains some good photos
as does John Bythell's Photography Website

for information on other systems and model tramways try:
The Tramway & Light Railway Society
The Light Railway Transit Association
Merseyside Tramway Preservation Society
Merseyside Transport Trust
Electric Lines of Southern Ontario

Bibliography: Liverpool Transport Volumes 1-4
by J.B.Horne & T.B.Maund