Published in October 2020 and written by Gareth David, this hardback from publishers Pen & Sword describes the history of Croydon Tramlink, which links Wimbledon with Croydon in South London.
The book measures around 28.6 cm x 18.5 cm, and has 200 pages and 200 colour & black and white illustrations, maps, track diagrams and timetables. It has a published price of £30, although at the time of writing it can be obtained online from Amazon for £16
This is the first full history of this fascinating tramway, which is about to celebrate its twentieth anniversary of opening. It describes the political, economic, and social aspects of the network, as well as the history of the system.
There are ten chapters arranged in chronological order, from the pressing need to provide better transport links in the area, through making the case for a tramway system and gaining Parliamentary approval, financial problems after it opened, and current plans to expand the network.
It is clear from the book that the tramway has been an important aspect in rejuvenating the Croydon area and improving transport links in an area lacking underground lines.
Although there are 200 illustrations, the book is predominantly narrative, apart from an eight-page centre spread of photographs in Croydon Town Centre.
The pages below are from Chapter 3, Winning Parliamentary Approval, which was granted in 1994 and illustrate the good balance between narrative and illustrations. Although the book has 200 illustrations, they don’t overwhelm the text.
Croydon Tramlink is now part of Transport for London, and as if to make that clear there are plenty of photographs of the current livery of green trams and the radically different original “blood and custard” livery.
The book’s ten chapters are split mid-way with a centre-spread of eight-pages of photographs of trams in Croydon’s town centre, such as the ones shown below.
Not all of the network is in built-up areas, such as the locations in the photos below. These are taken from an interesting section in which the author describes a journey around the complete network.
No book about Croydon Tramlink would be complete without mentioning the disaster at Sandilands on 9th November, 2016, the aftermath of which is seen below.
In summary, this book is liberally illustrated with a good balance between the original red and white and current blue, green and white liveries. A very-readable description of the early work to gain the support of the local authority and British Rail, and the lengthy process of gaining parliamentary approval and securing the capital funding. Although it describes the acrimonious takeover of the network by Transport for London, it doesn’t fully explain the reason why the authority was at loggerheads with the original operator of the network. A good balance between narrative and illustrations gives a good background to the construction and operation of the network, and recommended for anyone who has an interest in Tramlink or in trams in general.
The book is available to purchase from Amazon and from Pen & Sword.
We would like to thank Pen & Sword for providing RailAdvent with a copy of the book for review.
Responses
Definitely a book I’ll be wanting on my shelves. The transformational effect of Tramlink was been remarkable, and the only surprise is that nowhere else in southern England has succeeded in getting a new tram system up and running (and most haven’t even tried). For example, Surrey CC and the district councils have been bleating endlessly about road traffic congestion yet have never seriously considered emulating Tramlink in expanding towns such as Woking and Guildford and extending to Cranleigh (along the trackbed of the old LBSC Horsham & Guildford Direct line) or serving new towns in the planning stages at Dunsfold, Wisley and Merrow. Portsmouth and Southampton, both of which have extensive suburbs far from railway stations are other obvious tramway candidates, but nothing doing. It makes a nonsense of their claims of sustainability.