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Last Updated: 30 Sep 2015

THE FINAL DAY

By the 1950s, the Liverpool tram fleet comprised mainly of streamliner trams of the late 1930s. During the mid-1950s the "Bogie Streamliners" were all either scrapped or sold to the city of Glasgow, leaving only the "Baby Grand" versions of the streamliner cars which ran on a single 4 wheel truck.

By September 1957, the system had been reduced to just 2 working routes both running east of the city - the 6A and the 40. On the morning of Saturday 14th Septermber, just 26 cars were in service, 14 on route 6A and 12 on route 40. At 1.53PM that day, 293 left the Pier Head on the last scheduled journey to Bowring Park on route 6A. At 2.36PM it left Bowring Park returning to the Edge Lane Depot. During the last week, special tickets were on sale commemorating (on the the back), the 60 years that Liverpool Corporation had owned the tramway system.





Another of the "Baby Grand" cars which operated up to the end was car 245, which was later preserved by the city. Here is a picture I took of it in 1978, while on display at Southport, Merseyside. At 3.58PM on the 14th of September, car 245 left the Pier Head on the last journey to Page Moss on the 40 route. At 4.40PM it left Page Moss to return to the Edge Lane Depot as the last car to perform a scheduled service.

The final day of operation ended with a ceremonial final procession along route 6A of 13 "Baby Grand" cars including the specially prepared car 293. The driver and conductor on the last tram (car 293) on its final journey were Mr T Webster and Mr G Rodden.

Fortunately I was lucky enough to live near the 6A route and I remember as a child taking a ride on the tram on more than one occasion.

The ticket shown here, which was kindly sent to me by Cathy Atkinson, was used by her husband Brian on car 293 during the last tram week in September 1957.