PUBLIC TRANSPORT
| Birmingham Corporation laid down tramlines on several main roads
during the early 1880s. By 1885 Central Tramway Company steam tramcars
were in service along Stratford Road to Sparkhill and Moseley Road
to Moseley, both High Street and Bradford Street being lined. The
next year Coventry Road had trams to Charles Road, then the urban
edge, and a depot was built thereat. In 1896 Spark Brook was culverted
and Stoney Lane widened over it so that a single tramtrack could be
laid. By 1904 lines had been extended across the new Hay Mill Bridge
to join up with those already laid to the Swan, Yardley. The Fazeley
Street/Great Barr Street/Garrison Lane route to Bordesley Green began
in 1906, and that to Oldknow Road via Bolton Road the following year,
when Corporation electric tramcars powered by overhead cable were
beginning to appear. The Cattell Road line opened in 1913. On the
improved road confusingly called Bordesley Green tracks were laid
from the Green to Belchers Lane in 1925.
A large depot was built at the top of Arthur Road by the Corporation, and Company depots were acquired in Kyotts Lake Road and Henley Street. In 1930 the Bolton Road route was taken over by 'buses and extended to Coventry Road. A 'bus depot was built in Liverpool Street. Trolley-buses replaced the traffic-delaying trams on Coventry Road in 1935, diesel buses were brought onto all the Stratford Road routes the following year, and by 1948 all trams had gone from Bordesley. The trolley-buses lasted for a few more years. It was a long time before the tarmac-covered rails and granite setts were taken up. The two large depots are still used by West Midlands P.T.E., but the Camp Hill premises house Corporation maintenance equipment. |
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